


Something More

by pixietwisk



Series: Something More [2]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Romance, post trk, pynch - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-10
Updated: 2017-02-02
Packaged: 2018-07-14 06:20:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 23
Words: 65,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7157048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pixietwisk/pseuds/pixietwisk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adam and Ronan growing into their relationship.  Starts immediately after Gansey's resurrection and spans 14 years of their lives.  </p><p>“Fuck,” said Ronan, “I suck at this.”  He performed his smoker’s inhale.<br/>“I want to be,” Ronan paused, “In a thing with you.  Unless you don’t want a thing, then, you know, it’s not a thing.”<br/>“I want it to be a thing,” Adam replied earnestly.  “I’m not stupid.  I wouldn’t have started if I didn’t want a thing.  But I wasn’t sure if you changed your mind.  Because if you did, I get it.”<br/>“I didn’t.  I haven’t changed my mind.  It’s not going to change.”<br/>“Okay,” Adam said.  Both of them had been staring straight out the windshield during the entire bumbling exchange, connected only by fingers and pulse point.  Why did this feel so clumsy, so awful?  That night at the Barns, last night in the dark, this morning, all of it had been so right, so comfortable, so easy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Night of and Morning After

It was Henry who had quietly and competently taken care of them all.  He cajoled, joked, and bullied them into the two cars, swiftly evaluated Ronan’s utterly wasted state and insisted Adam take the BMW keys.  Adam mindlessly followed the Fisker through the black wet turns of the Henrietta night.  He barely registered the intensely emotional phone call Ronan made to Declan and Matthew.  Ronan’s relief was a little too raw for handling.  It was Henry who took them to the nondescript home clinic of a private physician who knew without question all services were to be discreetly billed on the Cheng account and no discussion of the strange set of injuries was to ever leave the confines of his office.  It was Henry’s self-deprecating humor that kept them all from falling over the edge.  Just that simply, he had earned his place among Gansey’s court.

Wounds treated, quest accomplished, they all stood in the driveway more afraid than ever to part and more certain than ever they would never really be parted.

Blue pierced the silence first.  “I should get home, I guess.  My mom will be worried.”

Gansey added an elaborate sigh.  “I’d better see to my family as well.  It will be unpleasant.”

Ronan was little more than a hollow-eyed zombie.  Adam, not much better than Ronan, still offered, “Do you need us?”

They were Gansey’s magicians still, even stripped of their power and worn to the ground.  The unquestioning solidarity grounded Gansey, who summoned a smile that reflected itself through them all.

“I’ll be all right.  See you tomorrow.”  He offered a fist bump to Adam and Ronan.  Each returned it solidly.

Tomorrow – an ordinary school day bereft of kings or demons or a holy crusade – it seemed impossible.

Henry offered an arm to Blue.  “Allow me to escort you home, noble lady.”  Blue nodded, charmed by his absurdity.  “I will return you to your orange chariot, Richardman.  Do you two also desire chauffer services?”

Adam looked at Ronan, who only looked at the nothing where his mother used to be.  Adam offered Henry his true smile, none of his careful masks in place, and clapped a friendly hand on Henry’s shoulder.  “We’re good.  I’ll see you at school tomorrow, Henry.  Thanks.”

Henry felt as though a glacier had calved.  He nodded, then ushered Blue and Gansey into the Fisker. 

Alone in the ordinary Virginia night, Adam turned to Ronan.  He looked to be barely alive.

“Matthew okay?”

Ronan was quiet for a long time, then nodded, just once.  He swallowed heavily.  His grief was a physical thing, crushing him from the inside out.

“Where to?” Adam asked, jangling the BMW keys. 

“Doesn’t matter,” Ronan replied, too exhausted to even come up with an expletive to punctuate the statement.

Adam wished he had somewhere of his own not horrible to bring Ronan.  The image of Ronan waking covered in the gore of Aurora’s death was still too fresh to make the Barns a possibility.  Monmouth would be huge and dark and empty without Gansey tonight, a disturbing reminder of how this day had almost ended.  Alas, St. Agnes it would be.  There was absolutely no way he was leaving Ronan alone tonight.

Ronan stirred enough in the church parking lot to put his hand out for the keys, though he did not make any move to get out of the passenger seat.

“C’mon,” Adam said, keeping the keys as he got out of the car.

Ronan did not move.  “C’mon what?” he asked flatly.

“C’mon up.  You need to sleep.”

Finally, Ronan leveled his viper’s glare at Adam.  “I don’t need a fucking babysitter.”

Abruptly, Adam’s patience sputtered and died.  He slammed the driver’s side door and ripped open the passenger door.  Ronan continued to glare malevolently.

“Get out.”

“Make me.”

“It’s been a real shitty couple of days.  There are gonna be some more shitty ones coming.  I’m tired and so are you.  Get your stubborn ass upstairs,” Adam snapped, Henrietta accent utterly undisguised.  The silence stretched under the ferocity of will churning between them.  Shockingly, Ronan broke first.

“What if I dream?” Ronan asked quietly, something truly terrible crossing his expression.

“I’ll wake you.”

Ronan snorted scornfully.  “You sleep like the dead, Parrish.”

“Not if I’m with you.”

Ronan arched a brow.  The ghost of a smile softened the sharp line of his mouth.

“Taking advantage of emotional distress to get me in bed?  Sneaky.”

Adam rolled his eyes, but the tips of his ears flushed a little.  “I’ll take the floor.  Let’s go, asshole.”

To Adam’s surprise, Ronan capitulated.  Adam carefully extracted Orphan Girl from the backseat and carried her up with them.

Adam concocted a little nest of sweaters and a blanket for Orphan Girl, who curled up in it and immediately went to sleep.  Clean and clothed in a couple scraps of Adam’s threadbare wardrobe, Ronan lay in Adam’s bed, staring into the relentless dark.  The void that had been Cabeswater and the void that had been Aurora Lynch pressed in so close he could barely breathe.  He was so tired, but sleep had never seemed so far away.

“Adam,” he whispered, certain he was already asleep.  The answer was immediate.

“Yeah?”

“Just come over here.  The splinters in that floor are fucking deadly.”

Unexpectedly, Adam complied without protest.  Knees and arms and elbows were awkwardly shifted until they were at last squeezed into the narrow bed together.  The dark was considerably less oppressive.

“This is, without a doubt, the shittiest mattress I’ve ever slept on,” Ronan quipped.

“The splinters haven’t gone anywhere,” Adam replied dryly.

“I’ll suffer,” Ronan replied, nuzzling his face deeper behind Adam’s ear.

“Shut up and go to sleep, Lynch.”

They slept and they did not dream.

The dawn found Adam struggling to extract an arm to silence the pathetic bleating of the alarm clock.  A tiny groan of exhaustion escaped him.  Ronan’s bleary blue gaze arrested him.  In these first moments of waking, it was the simplest, rightest thing in the world to kiss the unusually softened line of Ronan’s mouth.  Ronan’s response was sleepy and tender, though he gripped the back of Adam’s shirt in a tight fist.  Knuckles pressed against Adam’s spine.  Adam pulled back to flop partially onto the deadly splintered floor.

“School,” he sighed.

Ronan groaned in protest.  “I’m quitting,” he replied petulantly.

“Fine for you, but I’m not.”

Ronan only grunted.

“You better get up too.”

“Why?  I don’t even have my prison garb here.”

“My car’s still at the Barns.  I don’t care if you go to school, but if you don’t drop me off, you and Orphan Girl are stuck here all day.”

Ronan grimaced.  “In these clothes?”

Adam was already brushing his teeth.

Ronan levered himself off the mattress.  The thing was really unspeakable.  He was going to have to sneak in here and switch it out while Adam was at school during the day.  “Fine.  I’ll drop you off.  But we’re stopping for food, so hurry your ass up.  I’m fucking starving.”

Ronan did not enter the bounds of Aglionby’s parking lot, bringing the BMW to a stop across the street instead.  Adam felt something in him stutter.  The drudgery of the school day seemed an inadequate reason to leave Ronan in the company of no one but a bird and a dream child to navigate his looming grief.  Ronan seemed to sense his hesitation.

“Do you need me to pick you up after school?”

“I can get a ride,” Adam replied automatically, unused to admitting to needing anything he couldn’t provide for himself.

Sharply tuned into Ronan’s frequency, he could feel the sag of Ronan’s energy after this statement.  Adam could picture the weight of Aurora’s death dragging Ronan into an alcohol-fueled despair as the day progressed, which he would have no need to mitigate without this meager appointment in the afternoon.

Softly, carefully, Adam stroked the pinky of Ronan’s right hand, resting on the gear shift, with his own.  “But if you want to,” he added, “I’d like it.”  This felt a little dangerous, like riding the edge of a whirlpool, pretending it was possible not to be sucked into the center.

Ronan’s pinky snagged Adam’s, holding Adam’s entire being firmly in place with only that small point of possession.  There was something bright, alive, in his electric blue eyes Adam was much more interested in studying than anything in his academic curriculum.

“I want to,” Ronan said quietly.

“Okay,” said Adam.  He got out of the car and entered the august confines of Aglionby Academy.  He forced himself not to look back.


	2. 1 day after - awkward conversations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crackling through Adam was a certainty. If he hesitated now, he’d lose his grip on something vital. Ronan put little value in words – he needed more. So did Adam. Somewhere in the time-queasy expanse of the last three days, Ronan had catapulted from the category of privilege to the centrifuge of need. Adam unbuckled his seatbelt, leaned over, and kissed Ronan.

Ronan couldn’t figure out what in the seven hells to do with Orphan Girl.  She was skittish and difficult.  The muck boots he had in the trunk were okay for a very short duration, but they were hard for her to walk in.  She loathed them enough to keep “accidentally” stepping out of them.  He couldn’t take a fucking goat-hooved girl to McDonald’s, never mind the grocery store or the park or fucking anywhere.  He could probably dream up some suitable footwear, but he hadn’t dreamt since the demon, and if he was being honest with himself, he was not anxious to attempt it.  His terrible grief was stalking him like a mountain lion, barely kept at bay by the small crumbs of Adam’s affection he’d gratefully snatched up in the last 12 hours.  There was still too much uncertainty in that neighborhood to use it as reliable protection from his own subconscious.

Shitdamn!  This kid needed a decent coat and some clothes that didn’t make her look fucking homeless and something to sleep on at Monmouth.  He supposed she could sleep in Noah’s room, and that was probably the longer term solution, but that still felt like _Noah’s_.  Anyway, he was unsure about her sleeping habits, and if she started skittering around in the middle of the night she’d wake Gansey.  He cursed himself.  How had he managed to become a parent to a pre-teen satyr at 18 years old?  He should be getting drunk and mourning his mother right now.

Of course, his mother would have gently disapproved of drunken mourning.  She’d expect him to take care of Orphan Girl before thinking of himself.  She was always expecting him to be better than anyone else did.  He could take Orphan Girl to the Barns, but he wasn’t sure if she’d be too scared to be there by herself.  He sighed, rubbing his forehead.  There was only one option – Fox Way.  Surely he could convince or bribe at least one of the women there to keep an eye or Orphan Girl for a couple hours while he rigged up some shoes and bought her clothes? 

Maura came to the door before he knocked, allowing Ronan, his suspicious raven, and the reluctant goat girl inside. 

“Did Blue call you?” she asked, obviously bewildered.  “I would have thought Gansey . . . Shouldn’t you be in school?”

“I quit,” he said absently.  “Blue didn’t go to school today?”

Maura opened her mouth, closed it again, started over.  “She needed a day off.”

“Good.  Where is she?” he asked, craning his neck around as if she might be hiding behind a particularly tall piece of furniture. 

Maura pointed upstairs.  Orphan Girl whined so pitifully about the climb that Ronan left the boots on the ground floor.  Maura’s eyebrows shot up at the sight of the hooves, but she didn’t say anything.

The house was unusually quiet.  “Blue!” Ronan barked in the hallway, not enthusiastic about running into some other random female doing God knows what.

He heard a watery voice say “Ronan?” a little further down.  He cautiously peered into Blue’s whimsical forest of a bedroom.  Chainsaw squawked in alarm and took flight as Blue threw herself at him.  He put an arm around her reflexively, awkwardly patting her shoulder.

“What the fuck, Sargent?  Shit, is Gansey ok?  I haven’t looked at my phone-“

She was shaking her head against his shirt.  “Gansey’s fine.  He went to school this morning.  It’s Noah.  He’s . . . “ she inhaled snottily, “He’s gone.”

Ronan was annoyed.  All of this was very emotional and very feminine and it was making his skin crawl.  “He’s been gone a lot lately, but he’s a fucking ghost.  He’ll show up again when he feels like it.”

Blue pushed away from him with a frustrated exhalation.  Ronan looked down at his shirt, hoping it was snot-free.  Gwenllion’s voice drifted in from the hallway.

“One dead thing all dead, another dead thing not dead at all,” she trilled.

Opal ducked behind Ronan’s legs and whispered, “ _Tire e’ elintes,_ ” peeping out at Gwenllion.  Gwenllion stopped short, peering sharply down at her over Ronan’s shoulder.  She laughed delightedly.

“”What have you done, foolish knight?  Dragged your little dream into the day?”

She babbled something to Orphan Girl in the dream language.  Orphan Girl drew herself up, firmly planted a little hoof, and responded in kind.  Gwenllion’s smile became positively manic.  She said something else.  Orphan Girl frowned, visibly dropping her guard.  She seemed to ask a question.  Gwenllion answered it, low and amused, then held out a hand.  Orphan Girl reached for it.

“Orphan Girl!” Ronan snapped, loud enough that Orphan Girl jumped.  “What-“

Gwenllion cut him off, eyeing him with an air of clever omniscience.  “You came to find a keeper for your little dream, sir knight?  Lady Gwen will mind her for you.”

“You must be shitting me.  You’ll probably stab her or drown her or something.  Anyone in this house would be better than you.”

“Kerah,” Orphan Girl chirped softly, “You do not worry.  Lady Gwen is wise.”

Gwenllion’s smug expression was beyond what Ronan could tolerate.  “You think so because you’ve only spent ten seconds with her.  Wait out the whole minute.”

Gwenllion burst into song.  It was complex and decidedly archaic.  Orphan Girl smiled shyly, then began to whistle the perfect counterpoint, mystifying familiar with the tune.  She ducked around Ronan, gripped Gwenllion’s hand trustingly, and followed her down the stairs.  Ronan squeezed his eyes shut.  He deeply regretted entering this asylum.

He turned his attention back to Blue.  She had been startled out of her sulk.

“If she hurts Orphan Girl, I will personally tie her back up, gag her, and shut her back in that fucking cave for another 600 years,” he growled with menace.

Blue’s mouth quirked a little, at odds with the damp shimmer still lingering in her eyes.

“That’s the nicest I’ve ever seen her be to anyone.  Mom’s here, anyway.  I think it will be okay.”

Ronan was not entirely convinced, but felt the matter had been taken out of his hands.  He narrowed his eyes at Blue.  “So what’s all this about Noah?”

Blue’s face fell, but she did not cry again, to Ronan’s vast relief.  “He’s gone on.”

“On what?”

Blue flapped her hand in a vague way.  “Like on.  To the next astral plane, or wherever spirits go when they leave the place they can interact with the living.  Like Persephone.”

Ronan slid down the wall onto the floor, long legs stretched out in front of him.

“How do _you_ know?  I thought _you_ weren’t psychic,” Ronan said nastily.

“Mom and Calla told me.  He was staying here until he was . . . done.”

“Why?  Done with what?  Quit the mystical shit and just lay it out.” Ronan asked her, all angry intensity.  He was not angry with Blue, but he didn’t know how to direct anger at an impossible situation rather than another human being.

She sat down beside him, resting her head on his arm, as though there were no violent tension thrumming through him at all.  It made him feel a little calmer.  “Oh, Ronan.  You didn’t see it.  Gwenllion made him show me.  He spirit was so . . . thin . . . There was barely anything left.”

“He looked fine!”  Ronan protested pointlessly.  The truth was, since he’d learned Noah was dead, Ronan had been letting go of him a little at a time.  His wrongful death had been righteously avenged, and Ronan could guess that there wasn’t a whole lot more for Noah to stick around for after that.  Since the start of the school year, Noah’s presence had become increasingly infrequent, and often excessively _ghostly_ even when he was present.  Ronan guiltily admitted to himself he’d been far more focused on his growing obsession with Adam than on noticing Noah flickering quietly out of their lives.

“I think maybe he was part of the sacrifice for Gansey.  Time is a circle and all that.  He already was a sacrifice for Gansey and he just kept doing that part again when he needed to.  It’s hard to explain.”

They sat together in silence for a while.  None of them had wanted to give Noah up, but Noah had already been given up for Gansey.  I had happened seven years ago and yesterday and would happen still . . . and all this time circle shit gave Ronan a headache.  Blue sighed shakily.

“I need to tell Gansey and Adam about it.  Maybe we could all go to Monmouth after they get out of school?”

Ronan nodded.  “Remembered,” he said bitterly.  “We won’t forget him.”

“No,” replied Blue vehemently.

She picked up her head and eyed him critically.  “You know,” she speculated, “compared to last night, you don’t look that terrible.”

“Flattering,” he said scathingly.

“You look like you actually slept.”

“Some.”

“Was Adam okay?”

Ronan was instantly hurled into the sublime sensation of being entwined in bed with Adam all night, being lured back into consciousness by the wonder of Adam’s mouth on his.  Adam had been glorious, not okay.  His entire neck went red.

“Oh, ho!” Blue exclaimed, eyebrows lifted.  Ronan just huffed at her.  “Something happened with you two, the other night at the Barns.”  It was not a question.

Ronan’s neck somehow got hotter, even though he felt like he was already on fire.  Blue elbowed him.  He elbowed her back, harder.

“Spill it, Lynch.”

Ronan had every intention of leaping up and bolting from the house, but Blue scrambled to sit on his shins before he could get off the ground.  He glared at her.  She ignored it.

“Are you guys together now?”

Neither silence nor threat ever worked well on her.  He resigned himself to having this embarrassing conversation.  At least there were no witnesses.

“I don’t know!  We haven’t really had time to talk about it.”

“You seem to have had time for other things,” she said slyly.

Ronan scoffed.  “Jesus shit, you’re nosey.  I never asked what you and Dick get up to.”

“There’s been very little to tell,” she replied, sounding miffed.

Ronan fidgeted with his arm bands, finally talking with a strand of leather between his teeth, not daring to look at Blue while he spoke.  “Fine.  We made out a couple times.  We stayed at St. Agnes last night.  So we’re probably _together_.  I guess.  Whatever.”

She just watched him for a minute, observing the aftermath of his confession.  “Oh shit.  You are 100% all in.”

“What the fuck does that mean?  You don’t know jack about shit.”

She was grinning a little.  Ronan was searching his mind for something really unforgivable to say to end this.

“You are acting nervous.  I have never seen you look nervous like this and I have seen you in some seriously messed up situations.  You are _all in_.  You love him.”

Ronan crossed his arms and looked away with a grunt.  He did not deny it.  He suspected he was _still_ blushing, which was abhorrent.

“I’ll call Gansey about Monmouth.  He can bring Adam from school.”

“I’m picking Adam up,” Ronan blurted.  The poorly masked possessiveness did not escape Blue.

“Why would you pick him up when Gansey’s already there?  You hate Aglionby.”

“He asked me to pick him up.”

Blue’s eyebrows disappeared into her ragged bangs.  “So he’s all in too.”

“How could you possibly know that?” Ronan asked witheringly, but he was keenly interested in the answer.

“Adam Parrish asked you for an unnecessary favor, apparently just to have an excuse to spend 10 minutes alone with you.  Adam Parrish does not ask for favors.  He tells you to shove your favor up your ass, then spits on it.”

Ronan shifted a little.  Obnoxious as he found this exchange, it was inflating his hope.

“How did he ask you?” she continued.

“What am I, a fucking tape recorder?”

“Oh please,” snorted Blue, “We’ve already established _your_ interest level.  You’ve been replaying it in your head all morning.”

Ronan found her excessively accurate reading of him extremely distasteful.  “I wish I was drunk and somewhere else,” he said, and he’d never meant anything more.

“How?” she persisted.

Ronan sighed theatrically.  “I asked him if he needed me to pick him up.  He said he could get a ride, but if I wanted to, he’d like it.”

“He said, ‘I’d like it?  Those were the words?’”

“Yes.”

Blue was nodding.  “Yep, all in,” she said sagely.

Ronan raised an imperious brow.  “For a non-psychic, you’re reading a hell of a lot into one sentence.”

“Fine, Ronan.  Let’s compile more evidence.  Scientific method,” she said sharply.  “Did you kiss him or did he kiss you?”

Ronan really did not want to get into it, but felt he’d backed himself into a corner.  He also desperately wanted to feel convinced that Adam was indeed all in.

“Both.  Mutual.  I think.  Yes.  Both.”

Blue enjoyed seeing Ronan this unsettled more than she could possibly express.  “Just reacting, or did he initiate?”

The memory of Adam kissing him on the porch of the Barns as though he wanted to eat Ronan alive washed over him.  Ronan colored again, goddammit.

“Mmm-hmm,” said Blue.  “Adam doesn’t do anything unless he means it.  He’s going to go to Aglionby?  He won’t just go, he’ll be the best.  He’s going to leave home?  He’ll work himself to the edge of death to pay for his own apartment.  He’s totally hard-headed and compulsive.  He’s going to start something with you?  He’ll commit to it hard and he won’t look back.”

This was a valid point.  It was one of the things he loved about Adam.  It might take Adam a while to make up his mind, but when he did, it was made, come hell or high water. 

Blue stood up.  She offered Ronan a hand.  He nearly pulled her off her feet.

“Why were you looking for a babysitter?”

Ronan scrubbed a hand over his hair.  “The kid looks as beat up and homeless as her name.  And in case you didn’t notice, she has fucking hooves.  I need to figure out shoes and get her some clothes, but she can’t come with like she is.  I don’t have time to drop her off at the Barns, do all that shit, and still get back to pick up Adam.”

“Why don’t you just dream the shoes?”

“Without Cabeswater . . . I just don’t know what it will be like in there.  Don’t really want to go yet.”

Blue accepted this without a blink.  She tapped a finger on her chin.

“If we get some kids’ boots and some of that foam florists use, I think it could work.”

“It could,” Ronan admitted.

“I’ll go with you.”

“Who’s going to keep an eye on the crazy person with Orphan Girl?”

“Mom will.  Seriously.  It will be fine.”

Ronan hesitated, but he really did need to solve the shoe problem fast.  “Fine.  Let’s haul ass, Sargent.”

***

The sight of Gansey’s lordly presence on the lawn of Aglionby sent an unexpected wave of relief over Adam.  Gansey smiled and Adam nearly hugged him, but settled for a fist bump.  He let out a long breath.

“I knew you were fine last night, but I don’t think I really believed it until just now,” Adam admitted.  Gansey’s eyes continued to look pleased and benevolent, even as the smile dropped casually off his mouth.  “How’d it go with your parents?”

Gansey and Adam automatically fell into step together.  “Oh, the parents weren’t all that bad.  They were disappointed, but we talked it through.  Helen was the real fly in the ointment.  She’s still . . . hmm . . . passive-aggressively unpleasant.  But it will blow over.  Is Ronan here?”

Adam shook his head.  “I think he’s done for good.”

Gansey’s mouth thinned to a grim line. 

“It’s not for him, Gansey.  He’ll find his own way. He’ll be all right.”  Gansey did not look convinced.  “Hopefully his dropping out will void whatever deal you made with Child,” Adam added. 

Gansey blanched.  “I think Helen already took care of that.  One of the reasons she’s so irritated.”  He shook his head as if to clear Helen completely out of it.  “Where did Ronan stay last night?  I went to Monmouth early this morning, but he wasn’t there.  He hasn’t been answering my texts.  I just hope he’s not died from alcohol poisoning,” Gansey finished with a tired sigh.

Adam’s ears and the back of his neck went a little pink.  “He stayed with me last night.  He’s got Orphan Girl to take care of and he’s picking me up later, so I think he’ll keep the drinking to a minimum.”

Gansey stopped abruptly, gaze raking over Adam.  “So,” he said, “you two are officially together?”

“Yes,” Adam replied at once, then qualified, “I think so.  I’m pretty sure,” Adam sighed, “We probably need to talk about it.”

“Hmmm,” replied Gansey, well aware that talking was not one of Ronan’s best skills.  “Well, if he’s not drunk or dead by 3:00 p.m., I’ll have to say you’re a good influence.”

Adam pinched the bridge of his nose.  “Not sure I’m ready for that responsibility.”

***

Adam spotted the BMW across the street immediately.  A little spike of adrenaline shot through him.  He felt more awake than he had all day.  His barely acknowledged hope for an affectionate greeting died as soon as he closed the passenger door.  Ronan kept his eyes forward and did not say so much as a word to Adam.  His music was playing, but at an unusually subdued volume. He slammed the car into gear and raced toward each stoplight, expression shuttered.  Adam glanced to the back, surprised to see it empty. 

Ignoring Ronan’s obvious snit did not seem like a viable option the way it would have two weeks ago.  “Where is Orphan Girl?  And Chainsaw?” he asked, starting with easy and obvious.

“Monmouth.”

That was it.  No additional information seemed to be forthcoming.  “She’s alone at Monmouth?” Adam asked a little horrified, thinking of Gansey’s books and treasures acquiring teeth marks and hoof prints.

“Blue’s there,” Ronan scoffed.

Adam, tired and off-balance, felt a stabbing pain through his skull.  “Is that where we’re going?” Adam asked.

“Yep,” Ronan said, turning the volume up.  Adam’s blooming headache picked up the beat.  This was not going productively and Adam could not tolerate any further bullshit.  He slapped the radio power button.

“Pull over,” he snapped.

“What?”

“Just pull over, Ronan!”

They were in the neighborhood of Monmouth, moldering brick buildings in and out of regular use slouching along either side of the street.  Without slowing down nearly enough, Ronan jerked the wheel, skidding them to a stylish halt in the shadow of a derelict warehouse.

“Jesus Christ,” said Adam.  “You’re going to flips this thing and kill everyone inside one of these days.”

“Please,” Ronan said dismissively.  “What’s so fucking urgent?”

Adam glared at him, the momentary rush of fear he’d just experienced fueling the frustrated anger he was already grappling with.  “I have been at school all day.  I have no idea what crawled up your ass and died since this morning, and I need more than five words from you to figure it out.”  Adam faced Ronan.  “Why is Blue at Monmouth?  Why is Orphan Girl there with her?  Why are you so goddamn pissy?  Did I do something?  If you didn’t want to pick me up, you could have called Gansey to tell him to give me a ride.  You could have just not showed up at all and let me figure out something else.  Maybe I’m wrong, but I _thought_ . . .” Adam trailed off, realizing he was not ready to confront the idea that their budding relationship was not at all what he thought it was.

“You thought what?” Ronan asked, keenly focused on Adam.

“Nothing,” Adam said.

“Not nothing.  Don’t bullshit with me, Adam.”

“What are we . . . What is this?  Is _this_ a thing or not?”  He’d chickened out halfway through because the idea of using the word _relationship_ or even _together_ and having Ronan throw it mockingly back in his face hurt more than Adam wanted to admit.

Had he read everything wrong?  He didn’t think he had, but maybe after everything that had happened, knowing Cabeswater was gone, once Ronan had a few hours alone to think . . . Adam’s gaze snagged on the bruises around Ronan’s neck.  Ronan caught him and frowned.

“No,” Ronan said.

Adam’s stomach dropped.  He wanted to get out.  The ghost of Blue’s voice echoed inside him, _It’s not gonna be you_.  He was getting out.  His hand scrabbled for the door handle.  Ronan grabbed his wrist.

“Shit.  Wait.  I wasn’t talking about – I meant my neck.  That was a fucking foot long wasp demon.  That wasn’t your fault.  It wasn’t you at all.”

Adam’s pulse was still racing.  He stared at his own hands, at Ronan’s fingers around his wrist.  He was certain Ronan could feel the beat of panic pumping through Adam. 

“Fuck,” said Ronan, “I suck at this.”  He performed his smoker’s inhale.

“I want to be,” Ronan paused, “In a thing with you.  Unless you don’t want a thing, then, you know, it’s not a thing.”

“I want it to be a thing,” Adam replied earnestly.  “I’m not stupid.  I wouldn’t have started if I didn’t want a thing.  But I wasn’t sure if you changed your mind.  Because if you did, I get it.”

“I didn’t.  I haven’t changed my mind.  It’s not going to change.”

“Okay,” Adam said.  Both of them had been staring straight out the windshield during the entire bumbling exchange, connected only by fingers and pulse point.  Why did this feel so clumsy, so awful?  That night at the Barns, last night in the dark, this morning, all of it had been so right, so comfortable, so easy.

They turned to each other in the same moment. Crackling through Adam was a certainty.  If he hesitated now, he’d lose his grip on something vital.  Ronan put little value in words – he needed more.  So did Adam.  Somewhere in the time-queasy expanse of the last three days, Ronan had catapulted from the category of privilege to the centrifuge of need.  Adam unbuckled his seatbelt, leaned over, and kissed Ronan.

This was not the tentative, gentle greeting of the morning.  This was possession; this was hunger; this was a declaration of war in which Ronan was the only ally and the enemy was everything else.  Ronan was prepared to pledge his fealty in blood.  Hot liquid light pounded through Ronan’s veins.  The dark cloud of grief that kept trying to engulf him could not extinguish it.  Ronan wanted to stop time and just reuse this minute over and over again while the world disintegrated around them.

When Adam finally pulled back, they were both a little out of breath.  Adam had somehow managed to climb halfway into Ronan’s lap over the gearshift.  He swiftly returned to his seat.  The awkward thunderhead of tension in the car had been released with a bolt of lightning.  The air was still charged, but in a way they both knew how to resolve.

“It’s definitely a thing,” Adam said decisively.  He sneaked a glance at Ronan, vanity pleased to see him still looking dazed, struggling to compose himself.

“Yeah,” Ronan agreed.  “It definitely is.”


	3. 2 Days After - Object of His Worship

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Getting physical
> 
> Something huge battered the inside of Ronan's chest. There were words he could use to try to free it; I want you, I need you, I love you. They were all in his mouth, but they tasted like cardboard. Ronan was a dreamer - his landscape was infinity. How could he possibly explain the vastness of his yearning with the same tired words everyone used?

Ronan was waiting for Adam when he emerged from the darkened garage.  Adam slid tiredly into the car, still wearing his coveralls and smelling faintly of oil and gasoline.  Ronan's stomach flipped.  An abyss of want was yawning inside him, growing exponentially each time he reminded himself he was allowed to _have_.  It was just so fucking difficult to get Adam alone, between school, his jobs, and the presence of Orphan Girl.

"We should probably pick up my car tomorrow," Adam said.  "You must be sick of driving me around."

Ronan would not tell him that the most vital parts of his days this week had been these brief chauffeuring sessions.  Even he thought it was ridiculous.

"Yeah," he said, "Between you and Orphan Girl, I feel like a fucking soccer mom."

Adam chuckled ruefully, relaxing in the passenger seat in comfortable silence.  Ronan was hyper aware of every subtle shift he made.  When Adam's hand tentatively came to rest a few inches above Ronan's knee, Ronan sincerely considered pressing the accelerator to the floor to abscond with Adam as fast as the night could allow, where no responsibility would be swift enough to find them.  Gansey would be pissed, though.  He was currently babysitting.  The situation wouldn't hold for very long.

In the parking lot of St. Agnes, he could see Adam hesitating. Ronan silently hoped.

"I guess you need to get back," Adam said.

"Soon, but not, like, right now," Ronan answered.  The "soon" was far sooner than he wanted to admit.  He'd stretch it to the last second.

"Do you want to come up for a bit?"

Ronan's heart surged. "I guess," he said, but it did not come out nearly as nonchalant as intended.

A hint of a grin played around Adam's mouth.  Ronan wanted to get his teeth on it.

Once inside, Ronan sat down on Adam's mattress, back against the wall.  He watched Adam putter around, organizing his evening.  It was liberating to be allowed to admire him without trying to hide it, but time, in all its endless scope, bit at them.  He would have to go back to Monmouth and Orphan Girl too soon.

"Adam," he said, and nothing else.  Adam instantly turned his attention to Ronan, light blue eyes seeking the meaning of his own name laid out bare, quiet, unadorned.

Something huge battered the inside of Ronan's chest.  There were words he could use to try to free it; _I want you, I need you, I love you_. They were all in his mouth, but they tasted like cardboard.  Ronan was a dreamer - his landscape was infinity.  How could he possibly explain the vastness of his yearning with the same tired words everyone used?  Adam came toward him, head tilted a little to the side, as though he could almost hear everything not being said.

Ronan tried - he really did.  All that came out was a short, inarticulate mess of a sound. Adam's eyes smiled at him, though he didn't say anything.  He knelt in front of Ronan, finally close enough to touch.

There was only one way.  For the first time since the first kiss, Ronan reached first to pull Adam's mouth to his.

It was a melting, blissful, giving thing, a claiming of territory and a surrender of all holdings, all in one.  How could such a small collection of parts - lips, tongues, hands, noses, breaths, - be so enormous, so engulfing, that the entire universe seemed to cease being?  Dreaming was a crass party trick beside this magic.

Ronan was too caught in the web of it, memorizing every detail of sensation as though he might be able to remake it in his own mind, to know which of them pushed or pulled them both down to the bed.  He was so entirely focused on the miracle of smooth warmth that was Adam's skin against his, he could not consider why they would have had layers of clothing between them, or how the shift from one state to the other occurred.  He was certain that the path Adam's fingers traced along the lines of his tattoo were creating the design anew, not following it.  He wondered if it would be softer or sharper when Adam was done. Adam's hand coming to a stop on his hip bone was an anchor to this moment, not a signal that a question needed to be asked.  It took him breathless seconds to assign meaning to the words Adam uttered, and his clumsy response was cognition crashing against a brick wall of molten desire.

"How far do you want to go?" Adam asked softly, not loud enough to shatter the something building in the room like a wave across miles of open water.  His voice was all honeyed Henrietta, unfiltered.

"Right now?  Or ever?" Ronan asked, belatedly feeling a little stupid for spitting out the second part.  It was too large a question for the moment, and betrayed the depths Ronan was already diving into.

Adam did not laugh or mock.  His response was serious. "Are there different answers?"

Ronan was quiet for several heartbeats.  He knew Adam was not just asking about the physical inevitability they were hurtling toward at 100 miles per hour.  Ronan brought his thumb up to delicately sweep the line of Adam's lips.

"As far as you'll let me," Ronan said.

"A long way, then," Adam said, moving his lips back to Ronan's, and sliding his hand off Ronan's hip to where Ronan wanted it most.

He nearly came apart at the first touch, that beautiful hand he'd put to his mouth both in dreams and in life wrapped around him.  It didn't take very long, not nearly long enough.  But Ronan was determined to make this only the barest beginning of a long way.  He reveled in the hot needy noises coming from Adam as he offered what he had been given, feasted on the sound of his name gasped like there was no other word that could replace it.

After, they lay nose to nose, reclaiming stolen breath.  Adam laughed a little, a surprised, gentle sound.  "This whole thing is ass backwards, Ronan."

Ronan glanced down at his dick in confusion.

"Not that, you idiot," Adam said smacking his hip.  "That's fine."

Ronan could not control his satisfied smile.  Adam wrinkled his nose.

"Our relationship," Adam clarified, and it didn't sound awkward the way Ronan had expected it would.  It sounded more permanent than "thing" and Ronan was pleased by it.

"Seems like it’s going good to me," Ronan said.

Adam smiled then and Ronan sort of felt like he was falling.  Adam kissed him for a long minute, like a reward for good behavior.

"What's the problem, Parrish?"

"Don't most people go on dates and have conversations and what not, before they get to the sex part?"

This was disappointing.  They had barely started the sex part.  Ronan wanted to keep the momentum going in that department.

"Do we have to be like most people?"

Adam considered for a moment.

"No," he said thoughtfully, "that sounds boring.  I think backwards is our style."

Ronan blew out a breath.  "Thank fuck." 

He liked the way Adam had said "our style," like they were reinventing relationships to corner the market.

"It's just weird how I can barely talk about it with you, but putting my hand on your dick made perfect sense," Adam mused.

Ronan slid a hand along Adam's spine, caressing each vertebrae.  With his mouth on Adam's jaw, he said "Smartest thing you've ever done."

Adam moved his hand slowly over Ronan's chest angling downward.

A buzzing rattle from the floor halted his progress.

"Ignore it," said Ronan, pulling Adam up against him, seeking his mouth, as if he could make the phone disappear by holding Adam hard enough.  He could feel Adam starting to sink into him when the rattle sounded again.  Adam stiffened.

"Your pants are calling," Adam quipped.

Ronan exhibited an elaborate sigh.  Another buzz.  Ronan climbed halfway over Adam to retrieve it from his pocket, though he did not move to get dressed.

**Dick:**   Where are you? Your child is getting restless

**Dick:**   If you're sitting in your car drinking, I will call the police

**Dick:**   SHE’S EATING MY MODEL!  GET BACK!

Ronan handed the phone to Adam to hold, reluctantly getting up to get dressed. It vibrated insistently as it began to ring.

"Just answer it," Ronan said to Adam.

Adam lifted a brow, then shrugged and hit "answer."

"Hello?" Adam said.

There was a beat that was probably Gansey checking to see that he'd dialed properly.

"Um, hello?  Is, uh, Ronan there?"

"He is," Adam replied, unhelpful.  Ronan sniggered.

"Adam?" Gansey asked doubtfully.

"Yep."

"Ah," said Gansey.  "I see.  Well, I'm sorry to interrupt whatever you're doing, but might I hope Ronan will be back soon?"  Gansey's tone was strained, hassled.

Adam admired the play of muscle under Ronan's tattoo before he pulled his shirt on.

"Are you heading back?" Adam asked Ronan.

"Yes, Jesus, I'm on my way."

"He's on his way.  There may or may not be a deity involved."

"Good. I need him post haste.  He can leave the deity with you."

Ronan took the phone from Adam.

"Keep your shirt on, Dick, I'll be there in 10."

"I agreed to help you while you picked Adam up from work, not while you were having a romantic liaison.  You have a responsibility," Gansey said frostily.

Ronan rolled his eyes.  "Yeah, yeah, dad, I'll be home by curfew."

Ronan hung up.  He knelt down to bestow a slow, smoldering kiss on Adam.  "See you tomorrow?"

"I hope so," Adam said.  "Unless you're grounded."

Gansey's launch into the extended responsibility lecture was welcome.  It allowed Ronan to convincingly pull off sullen and offended.  He was certain none of the residual giddy warmth from his encounter with Adam showed anywhere in his posture.

It took another two hours to mollify Gansey and get Orphan Girl to settle down on the futon he’d bought for her in his room.  He was going to have to come up with something better for the kid.  She fucking hated being indoors and her hooves were ripping up the futon mattress already.  He needed to move her into the other room.  He had never before fully appreciated the luxuries of privacy.

In the dark, with no one to observe, Ronan could finally allow his thoughts free rein.  His mother had just been destroyed.  His father's death had torn him to bloody pieces, but this one just sort of clawed around the edges, barely requiring a handful of stitches.  Was it because so much of her had vanished with Niall?  Maybe it was because he'd begun to build his own family. He'd had Gansey, only Gansey, when Niall died, but Ronan hadn't really known what that meant at the time.  This time was miles different.  He was the master of his dreaming.  He was no longer at war with Declan.  He had Matthew, and Gansey and Blue and he even appeared to be stuck with Henry fucking Cheng. Orphan Girl and Chainsaw needed him.  And Adam.  God, he had Adam, as more than just his uncanny friend.  The ache of sadness could not compete with the ferocious joy of being with Adam skin against skin, tongues and teeth.  He'd greedily replay it right now, only Orphan Girl was sleeping not 10 feet away.

It might be okay not to be swallowed by grief, to just feel it pulling at him softly.  It might be okay to allow himself to feel . . . happy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was a little hesitant to post this one, and still a little unsure about it. I know it's pretty quick to get to this point in the timeline, but . . . I think Ronan's been thinking it about it for a long time. Adam is starved for physical affection, and not the type to back down from a decision. I think emotional milestones in their relationship are bigger for both of them than physical ones.


	4. 1 week after - The living room

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Are you with Ronan in D.C.?  
> "No. He left me his phone."  
> There was a pause. "Why?"  
> "So he could call me."  
> "He called you?"  
> "Yes."  
> "Just to talk?"  
> "Pretty much."  
> "Blue was right. He's ass over teakettle. Never thought I'd see it."

On Thursday, Adam accompanied Ronan to the Barns to pick up his car. Ronan was only there long enough to put together a bag before he headed to D.C. It was time to break the news about Aurora to Declan and Matthew. Adam stood beside the car. Ronan handed Adam his phone.

“Keep it for me.”

"Don't you need it? Isn't all your music on here?"

"I have an old iPod."

There was something vulnerable in the way Ronan didn't quite look at him. He tossed Adam the charger as well. Adam pocketed both.

"Why can't I stay with Adam at the Barns?" came Orphan Girl's piping little voice from the back.

"Because he's not staying at the Barns," Ronan snapped.

"He could stay with me. I'll watch him."

Adam choked back a laugh. Ronan turned all the way around in his seat.

"You're the one who needs watching, brat! Adam has shit to do!"

He turned back to Adam, exasperated. Adam ducked his head in the window and kissed Ronan lingeringly. He was just starting to lose track of where they were when suddenly Ronan jolted forward. Adam pulled quickly away. Ronan lurched forward again.

"If you kick that seat one more fucking time I will tie you up and stash you in the goddamned trunk!" Ronan bellowed. Chainsaw was squawking angrily at Orphan Girl, who squawked back just as ferociously. Adam's dusty brows went up, eyes wide.

"You better hit the road Lynch."

Ronan spared him a suffering glance.

"Wanna come?"

The bird fight had not subsided.

"Nope," said Adam.

"Asshole," muttered Ronan.

He spun the radio dial, attempting to drown out the cacophony and sped away.

Adam slipped the phone out of his pocket. For all that Ronan detested talking on the phone, he was rarely without it. Certainly not for an entire weekend. Adam, curious, intended to keep it nearby.

The call came at 1:00 a.m., Saturday morning. Adam was up, deep in his neglected homework. It took a good ten seconds for him to recognize the source of the buzzing, and 15 more to find the damn thing under his books. His deaf ear made seeking out the low vibration maddening.

When he finally found it, it had gone still.

Missed call: Matthew Lynch.

Adam debated for a second, then called back.

"Thought you might be sleeping," Ronan's voice muttered, barely audible.

"I can't believe you're actually calling me. Is there an ax murderer in the room?"

Ronan made a dismissive noise. "Why do you think I left you my phone, dipshit?"

"I was baffled, honestly. I never expected you to call it."

"Fuck you. I can hang up."

Adam laughed. "Don't. I'm feeling very privileged right now. Special even."

"You fucking well should."

"I definitely do," There was a long pause. "Does Matthew know you have his phone?"

"No. He's asleep."

Another pause.

"How are you doing?"

Ronan sighed long and loud.

"Shitty."

"Tell me," Adam said, softly.

"Matthew's a mess. He keeps disappearing to cry where he thinks Declan and I won't notice."

"How's Declan taking it?"

Adam could imagine Ronan's expression - all fury and disdain. "Stone cold, as usual. He's just hovering over Matthew and watching me like I might kill him too, any second. You know, day in the life."

Adam waited a beat, then replied fiercely, "You didn't kill her, Ronan."

"I left her in that fucking place. Even after we saw tree rotting. Even after we got Orphan Girl. I left her."

"Would it be better to have her comatose in the sitting room again, gathering dust?"

"Yes," Ronan snarled, "because I might find a way to wake her up! She might not be gone forever!" Ronan's breath was ragged.

"I know Cabeswater was something, but I know she wasn't the same without. . . without your dad."

"How would you know?" hissed Ronan.

"I've seen the photos at the Barns. I've heard you talk about her. I met her in Cabeswater, Ronan. I know."

"It was better than nothing," Ronan said. His voice was raw. "Even if she was still asleep, it would be better than nothing."

Adam briefly contemplated climbing into his Hondayota and immediately driving to D.C. but he didn't think it would help. Ronan had not told his brothers about Adam and this was not the time. He also recognized they could not have had this conversation in person. It was too heavy, too dark, too hard. There were no jokes, no glares, no shrugs that could mute it.

"No, it wouldn't. It would eat you alive every minute of every day you couldn't wake her. It's not like the fucking cows, Ronan. How long before you couldn't stand to walk in the house? How long before you couldn't stand to look at Matthew? You did everything you knew how to do. That's all there is."

There was a terrible sound from Ronan's side. It was something like a sob.

"I miss them," he said hoarsely, and the fathomless sorrow drowning it cut Adam to the core.

"I know."

Adam and Ronan stayed on the line in silence for another two minutes, Ronan to compose himself and Adam to give him time to do it.

"How's Orphan Girl?" Adam asked, in a desperate attempt to steer things back to acceptable territory.

Ronan snorted.

"She's a fucking disaster. Hates being in the fucking car, hates Declan's townhouse, hates the city. I have to take her over to the park twice a day to walk her like a goddamn dog. She put teeth marks in Declan's leather armchair."

"How pissed was he?"

"He started yelling at me to control my pet – fucking pet, Parrish! - so she took off her boots and kicked him in the shin."

"Ouch. Those hooves hurt like hell."

"No shit, right? He fell on his ass. I swear there were tears in his eyes." Ronan sounded more like himself now, vindictive and pleased.

"What does Matthew think?"

"He likes her - thinks she's funny."

"Hmm." Adam said. Matthew liked everyone.

"I'm going to see if I can get Chainsaw to shit on Declan's hood before church."

"I didn't think she was the type to crap on command," Adam mused.

"No, but it's worth trying."

Adam grunted. "Only you would train a bird to strategically defecate."

"That's fucking useful, Parrish. Practical. You should appreciate it."

"You're ridiculous."

"So what are you doing up? Homework?"

"Sorry to be so predictable."

"So fucking responsible."

"One of us should be. You coming home on Sunday?"

"Yeah."

"Monmouth or the Barns?"

Ronan blew out a breath. "Barns. Orphan Girl needs to run around for a couple days. She's driving me fucking nuts."

Adam took this with a grain of salt. Orphan Girl was a critical distraction. He knew without her Ronan would be hopelessly mired in his grief.

"Let me know when you’re getting on the road. I'm off Sunday afternoon. I can meet you there."

"Okay. Get some fucking sleep, loser."

"Says the insomniac."

"So I know what I'm talking about."

"Good night."

"Whatever." Ronan hung up.

Adam knew what needed to be done. The brief foray to the Barns on Thursday to retrieve his car had been rough. Mr. Gray had cleared up the worst of the gore, but there was no using that couch ever again. Adam had seen it in the set of Ronan's shoulders. As soon as he woke Saturday morning, he made the call.

"Ronan? Is everything all right?"

"Gansey? It's Adam."

"Are you with Ronan in D.C.?

"No. He left me his phone."

There was a pause. "Why?"

"So he could call me."

"He called you?"

"Yes."

"Just to talk?"

"Pretty much."

"Blue was right. He's ass over teakettle. Never thought I'd see it."

Adam rolled his eyes. "Whatever. I need your help."

Gansey nearly fell off his bed, hearing those words from Adam Parrish. He immediately agreed, though the plan seemed somewhat dubious. Ronan was obviously not the only one ass over teakettle.

Adam was leaning against a post on the porch when the BMW whipped into the gravel parking area. Ronan, Orphan Girl, and Chainsaw emerged dramatically from the ensuing dust cloud, like a trio of action heroes –Bird! Tough Guy! Goat Girl! The illusion was ruined by Orphan Girl, who kicked Ronan, causing him to stumble, then bolted out into the fields. She gave Adam a cheery little wave.

Ronan met Adam on the porch, glaring after her. "I'm tempted to walk that little shit out to the middle of the woods and abandon her. No fucking breadcrumbs."

Chainsaw landed awkwardly on Adam's head. "Ow! Hi, Chainsaw. You didn't tell her to crap in my hair, did you?" Adam asked, holding out an arm for her to shift to. She repositioned, but gave him a disapproving glare.

"No, but that would be hilarious," Ronan chuckled.

"Don't let him be a bad influence," Adam said to Chainsaw, stroking her head gently, "you're a lady."

Ronan nodded grudgingly. "Maybe that's the problem. She's too sophisticated."

Chainsaw preened haughtily before launching herself into the sky.

"I have something for you inside," Adam said, caution keeping his tone neutral. Ronan looked warily at the door.

"You'll either like it, or you're going to punch me. I'm prepared for either, just so you know."

"Do we have to look at it now? My punching arm is tired. I just spent three days with Declan."

"Best to get it over with. You can always punch me later, after your arm is rested."

Ronan followed Adam with a growing sense of unease. He'd already been dreading his necessary return to the house a little. He had solid plans to avoid the living room entirely for at least six months - or until he could think of it without growing nauseous. The only bright spot had been the thought of Adam meeting him here. Now even that was substantially dimmed. They were headed straight for the living room. Ronan stopped dead in the doorway. This was not his house. He briefly wondered if there was some kind of weird dreamt interdimensional portal lying haphazardly in the hallway.

The room was expensively filled with subdued, masculine furniture – all leather and dark wood. An excessively large flat screen television was mounted on one wall, accented by a sleek stereo system. Surround sound speakers nestled tastefully near the ceiling. There were accent pillows cleverly covered in fabrics that appeared to have been scavenged from all over the house, but none of them seemed out of place. Even the walls had been painted a subtle sage. It did not try to eradicate his past – there were long buried photos of his parents on the wall – but in it the past retreated gracefully to the background, allowing his present and future to take precedence. He loved it and felt guilty for loving it and hated both these emotions. He was so overwhelmed he kind of did want to punch Adam, just a little. His right hand balled itself into a fist of its own volition.

"What. The. Fuck," were the only words he seemed capable of speaking.

The worry lines on Adam's face grew pronounced. Ronan hated being responsible for that.

"Everything is still here. We can return this stuff and put it all back," Adam paused. "Except that couch. It's gone. Permanently."

Ronan expected to be angered by the presumption, but he only felt relief. The idea of facing that damn thing had been like making a plan to put his hand in an alligator's mouth.

"How did this fucking . . . whatever the shit this is happen? Did you tell them about what I said?" Ronan was seared with a blast of hurt and betrayal. That vulnerability had only barely been acceptable to expose to Adam. The idea of him calmly reporting it -

"Of course not. I just asked Gansey to help me get rid of the couch."

"Right. Of course. He didn't ask why," Ronan growled scathingly. Adam just gave him a patient look that had Ronan more strongly considering the punching option.

"He's your best friend, Ronan. He didn't need to ask why. I told him I needed to get rid of it and I needed help getting a trailer over here to haul it out."

This was so mildly reasonable Ronan was momentarily rendered speechless.

"And then?" He asked quietly, dangerously. "It’s obvious Blue and Cheng were involved."

"Blue called Gansey while we were renting the trailer. She wanted to come to the Barns with us. And I swear Henry's robot bee has Gansey's phone bugged because he just showed up at Monmouth when we were about to go. Said he had nothing to do. So we came over here and Gansey and I got the couch out."

Ronan waited. "There's, like, $15,000 in furniture in here, Parrish."

"Right," Adam said wincing at the use of that obscene number.

"Blue and Henry weren't grilling you about why, either, huh?"

"No. Nobody needed to ask why. At all. They're your friends, dumbass. You need something, they'll just do it."

As the sense of betrayal faded, Ronan began to feel amused. This room literally smelled like money - new leather and electronics. Adam would never condone such excess. He was bold enough to eliminate an object that took part in one of Ronan's worst nightmares. He was far too respectful of personal privacy, however, to mastermind this blatant overkill. Ronan crossed his arms over his chest.

"How did they steamroll you?"

Adam flushed. "Blue had a fair point."

"Sargent," Ronan said, nodding as though this was perfectly logical.

"Without the couch there was this huge empty space in here. It was actually worse than having the couch in the room. We thought we could rearrange and maybe pull something from another room to make it look better. But nothing in this house matches, and there are so many weird dream things . . .” Adam trailed off, looking at Ronan for a clue.

Ronan kept his face carefully blank, but was becoming charmed by this flustered Adam. He was starting to wonder how good the surround sound was. And after a weekend in Declan’s sterile townhouse and two hours in the car with a kicking satyr and disgruntled bird, the overstuffed leather couch looked rather inviting.

“Anyway, Henry started talking about how much better it would be to hang out here than at Monmouth-“

“Did Gansey get all offended?”

“A little, but Gansey likes it here too. We all do,” Adam said. “It’s just . . .it really feels like a _home_.” Adam shook his head.

Ronan was warmed by this perception from all his friends, and especially to have Adam say such a thing. In his fantasies, he would have Adam here with him all the time. He’d make it happen eventually. Adam was already hearing the siren song of the Barns.

“So they went shopping, and Blue made some stuff,” Adam ended lamely. “What’s the verdict? Happy or am I banished?”

“Did Gansey buy all of this shit?”

“Henry bought the electronics.”

Ronan nodded. He sat down on the couch, sinking into it. A future was blossoming in his mind. In it, each room of this house was slowly renovated to suit his own tastes and interests. His friends and even his brothers (at least one of them) would come and go, filling the house back up with life. Only one thing preyed on him.

“So this is Gansey,” Ronan said, pointing to an armchair, “and that’s Blue,” he hefted a pillow, “and even Cheng got his piece,” Ronan said pointing to the TV. “Where are you?”

Adam’s color rose a little again. He stepped out of his shoes and arranged himself comfortably on the chaise section. “Right here. I think this is my spot.”

Adam Parrish, exemplary student, had astutely analyzed the question and delivered the most correct answer. There was nothing he could have said Ronan would want to hear more.

“Where’s my spot?” Ronan asked petulantly.

Adam slid over to the left side of the chaise. There was a significant space available. Adam draped his right arm over the back cushion. “This one looks good for you.”

Ronan swallowed the lump that had risen in his throat. He slid in next to Adam, burying his face in Adam’s neck and locking both arms around his waist. Adam’s right arm slid around him. Ronan felt calmed, contented, for the first time in days. The addiction only seemed to be growing rather than leveling out. Ronan wasn’t certain how much worse it could possibly get.

“Thank you,” he mumbled into Adam’s neck.

“You’re welcome.”

“Don’t you dare tell any of those other assholes I said it.”

“Wouldn’t consider it.”

Ronan kissed Adam’s neck. Adam shivered under his lips. He clutched at Ronan’s nape when he carefully applied his teeth. They kissed hungrily.

“Want to help me break this thing in?” Ronan asked.

Adam, flushed and pressing against him, blinked a few times. “What if Orphan Girl comes in?”

“I can promise you she will not set foot inside a house for at least the next four hours.”

“Then let’s get busy. It’s a big couch.”


	5. 1 month - The Nightmare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adam wakes Ronan from a nightmare.

Adam startled awake.  Momentarily disoriented, the comfort of the bed and the sense of space above him signaled Monmouth to his brain.  The indirect glow of nearby streetlights sneaking through the topmost windows was enough to show him what had woken him.  Ronan twitched and jerked, his breathing rapid.  He was curled in on himself, hands clenched into fists.  A thrill of fear went through Adam.  Bad dreams could become worse realities in bed beside Ronan Lynch.

Opal’s eyes flashed in the darkness, reflective like a deer’s.  She was about to shake Ronan awake. 

“Wait,” Adam hissed.

He did not intend to leave Ronan to the untender mercies of his nightmares, but he didn’t want the abrupt shock of waking to bring the nightmares into waking life.  He silently cursed the loss of Cabeswater.  A month ago, he could have easily scryed into Ronan’s dream space and safely pulled him out.

“Kerah,” Opal keened softly.  Ronan shuddered. 

There was a way to do this.  _Think, Adam.  Make the connection_.  Cabeswater was the connection.  Ronan had shaped Cabeswater.  Adam knew the feeling of Cabeswater in his bones.  Cabeswater’s energy had been all tangled up with Ronan’s.  What had felt different when he had been in Ronan’s dream?

Adam fixed his gaze on the tiny, unblinking blue light from the computer monitor.  His compass was Ronan – his weight on the mattress, the warmth of his skin, the rhythm of his breath, the bruising charisma of his presence . . . Adam’s hand drifted to rest lightly on Ronan’s shoulder blade.  There was something there, just beyond the edge of his perception.  He breathed out, directing the invisible line of his breath toward it and letting his wandering consciousness follow stealthily in its wake. 

Something shifted.  He could feel it – the dream – something huge, amorphous, thrashing.  It felt like Ronan, mostly, but more.  He allowed his senses to brush against it, a ship of indeterminate shape tossed frantically on a stormy sea.  There was something else there too, like small ballast stone, enough to keep the ship from capsizing, but only just.  Dimly, he realized this was Opal. 

Ronan whimpered.  The sound tugged at Adam from far away.  There was no time.  He had to save Ronan from drowning, lead him out of the labyrinth.  Images flooded him, a man with the head of a bull, a palace with columns, a princess with a ball of string.

Persephone had taught him a great deal about listening to the inaudible, finding the unseen just beyond the curtain of the ordinary world.  She had taught him to find the balance between inside and out, to trust in the tremendous power of his own intention.

The path out of the labyrinth was the string.  A foggy memory of Persephone knitting helped him allow the images of Ariadne and the Minotaur to fade into the background.  He needed a string Ronan would immediately see and want to follow.  He breathed deliberately in and out again, picturing a luminous, silky, golden strand, weaving its way around the edges and into the violent dream space, fine enough to pierce, strong enough not to snap as it connected inside with outside.  Adam’s consciousness followed the idea of the thread, the dangerous energy tugging at him.  He realized there was something anchoring him to his body, a tenuous little chain in the form of a small hand on his leg.  He was getting in too deep.  His touch on Ronan’s shoulder grew firm.  “Wake up,” he said, managing to speak out loud, tugging on the gleaming string.

Ronan went perfectly still, his ragged breathing slowing.  He remained utterly unmoving.

 _Shit_.  Adam thought.  _Shit.  Shit.  What’s coming?_   Adam shook his head, blinking rapidly, trying to come back more quickly.  He scrabbled for Opal’s hand, her grip having the same effect as a bucket of water thrown in his face.  All his muscles tensed, ready to fight and defend.  Finally, Ronan shifted.  He rolled onto his back, clutching a silky, luminous length of golden string.

Adam allowed himself to breath, gulping air as if he’d been underwater.  “Oh, thank God.”

Ronan looked at him hazily.  “Are you real?” he asked, voice still sleepy.

“Yes,” Adam answered definitively.  He touched the thread, overcome with wonder.

Ronan sat up and turned on the lamp.  His pulse was slowing, but he could see Adam’s still racing in the hollow of his throat.  There was a wary question on Ronan’s face.

“You were having a nightmare,” Adam said.

“No shit.  I was there.”

“We didn’t want to wake you too fast, in case . . . “ he did not need to finish that thought.  Ronan nodded.  “I was scrying, to find a way to pull you out, but I couldn’t get in without Cabeswater.  And I thought . . . Ariadne . . . “

Ronan scrubbed at his face.  He examined the thread stretched across both of them.  “It was dark.  Everything.  There was . . .” Ronan broke off, shaking the details away.  He glanced down at his torso, reassuring himself the bloody rents no longer decorated his arms and chest.  “They were closing in.  I turned and – it was the only light thing.  It didn’t belong.  They were afraid of it.  I grabbed it and . . . I woke up.”

Adam pulled it reverently through his slender fingers.  “It’s exactly how I pictured it.  Exactly.  It even feels perfect.  This is amazing.”

Ronan was confused.  He took the thread from Adam, shook it to confirm it was, in fact, nothing but a piece of string, and made to toss it aside.  Adam grabbed for it.

“No!  I _made_ this.  I put it in your dream and you took it out.  This is _my_ dream thing.”  Adam was rapt, excited. 

Opal tugged at it to examine it.  She touched her tongue to the tip.  A smile brightened her face.  “Yes,” she confirmed, “You are also a dreamer.  A little,” she qualified.

“ _You_ put it in my dream?” Ronan asked.  “How?  That’s fucking weird.  Real magician shit.”

Gansey rapped on the partially open door.  “Is this conference going to die down soon?  Some of us are attempting to sleep.”

“Gansey, get in here,” Adam said.  “I made a dream thing!”

When he did not instantly appear, Ronan flopped back onto his pillow and yelled, “Jesus, you prude, no one’s naked.  Fucking Opal’s in here.”

With this reassurance, rumpled, pajama-clad, bespectacled Gansey appeared, eager to discuss the phenomenon.  Adam showed him the string with pure delight. 

“It came out of _my_ dream,” Ronan grumbled, “so technically – “

“Shut up, Ronan,” Adam said, smacking his shoulder.

“Tell me everything,” Gansey said, fascinated.  He sat himself on the end of the bed, examining the thread critically.

Ronan pretended to ignore them both, staring up at the ceiling, but soon found himself helplessly caught up in Adam’s explanation, adding his own questions to Gansey’s.  For a little while, it was Glendower all over again, the three of them coming together as a single mind, picking the incident apart, putting it back together, conjecturing the possibilities.  A snore from Opal, curled up in a ball on Ronan’s pillow, reintroduced the reality of the night fading too soon into the coming morning.

“Jesus Christ,” said Gansey, glancing at his phone, “We need to be up in less than 3 hours.”

Ronan gathered up Opal to deposit her back in her bed in the other room.

“It’s still there, Gansey,” Adam said still giddy.  “It wasn’t all Cabeswater.”

“No,” Gansey agreed, “It was mostly you.”

Adam’s smile was as loose and joyful as Gansey had ever seen it.  He couldn’t help but smile back.

Ronan shuffled back into the room as Gansey, bemused, left it.  The aftershocks of Adam’s delight were still sitting on his face as he fondled the golden string.  For a dream thing, it wasn’t much, but had been a light in the dark, a lifeline, and it was living proof Adam could and would come for him where no one else was willing or able.

Ordinarily, after a nightmare of this magnitude, Ronan would not go anywhere near his bed for the rest of the night.  He might pace, fiddle on the computer, play on the Playstation, listen to music – anything to kill time until dawn when he could use the daylight to cheat sleep as long as possible.  Adam’s cornflower blue eyes met his, happy and unguarded.  Ronan felt certain, all throughout the unbounded realm of his dreamer’s heart, that he could commit himself to putting that look on Adam’s face for the rest of his life and never be bored for an instant. 

“You coming back to bed?” Adam asked him, another, deeper question hiding beneath it.

Ronan thought the powerful rush of emotion surging though him might be leaking onto his face.  Adam was a careful, analytical creature.  It was too soon for confessions of this magnitude to be taken from the dream into the world.  He moved quickly to turn out the light and slide back under the blanket next to Adam.  There was nothing else he could imagine that felt further from the nightmare than this.  As they shifted together to comfort, facing one another, Ronan stuck a calf in between Adam’s, a hand over his ribs.  Even if he didn’t sleep, he knew he could be perfectly content for the couple hours remaining in the night.  It was a foreign sensation, finding contentment in stillness.  The gold string, looped loosely around Adam’s wrist, glimmered softly in the darkness.

“Kind of basic for a dream thing.”

Adam traced a finger down Ronan’s arm.  Ronan fought down a shiver of pleasure.  “I think it’s pretty good for my first time,” Adam said.  “It was just what I needed.”

Ronan sighed.  “I’ll have to teach you from scratch.”

“I’m a good student,” Adam said sleepily, eyes already closed.

Ronan listened to his breathing even out into sleep.  It wasn’t until the soft noises of Adam getting ready for school woke him that he realized the magician had pulled him safely back into slumber after all.


	6. 2 months after - Lynch brothers find out about Adam

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Declan made an exasperated noise. “Jesus, Ronan. I thought we were past this. You do not need to construct every decision you make expressly to piss me off.”  
> Adam’s regard went from cool to absolutely frigid. Ronan was sucking all of the air out of the room, less than three seconds from a total nuclear meltdown. Adam gripped Declan’s shoulder, using it to turn Declan toward the door. Simultaneously, he instructed Matthew, “Tackle him,” cutting his gaze to Ronan. Matthew, disinclined to let the Ronan bomb decimate the entire block, got the gist quickly enough to take unsubtle and enthusiastic action. Declan tried to shake him off, but Adam’s grip was firm, guiding Declan to the door. Adam called back, “Sit on him if you have to, Matthew!” over Ronan’s wordless howl of frustration.

The impossibly shiny Volvo winked dangerously at Adam as he pulled into the Monmouth parking lot after work.  In the last two months, the Lynch brothers had formed a tenuous peace, involving trading weekends in Henrietta and D.C. for church attendance, followed by a meal that was essentially Ronan exercising visitation rights with Matthew.

Adam stayed clear of these post-church meetings both to allow the brothers their privacy, and because Ronan had not told them about Adam yet.  He was probably going to have to say something today, however, because the information had hit Aglionby like a stone in the middle of a pond on Friday, and the ripples would not take long to make their way to Declan and Matthew.  Adam was not embarrassed to be dating Ronan, but he had no one to offend or disappoint by publicly dating another guy.  The Lynch brothers were decidedly Catholic, Declan was decidedly judgmental, and Ronan was decidedly volatile where Declan’s judgment asserted itself.

Adam trotted up the stairs, but he could already hear it.

Declan:  “So just tell me who you’re seeing!”

Ronan:  “Since when do you give a fuck?  You’ve dated everything with a set of tits in a twenty mile radius!”

Declan:  “Because there are a lot of terrible people after what’s in your fucking head!”

Ronan (quieter and deadlier):  “Do you think I’m a fucking idiot? Would I just pick up a fucking stranger?  My name isn’t _Declan_.”

Declan:  “You never fucking think!  I’m _trying_ to protect you!”

Ronan (snarling):  “I don’t need your protection!”

Adam hurriedly banged the door open.  A dewy-eyed Matthew glanced at him, but neither Declan nor Ronan seemed to notice.  They were nearly chest to chest, hands already balled into fists, feet planted firmly.  Declan barked, “Just tell me who, goddammit!”

Adam stepped smoothly right in between them, forcing both back a step, though not off-balance.  He replaced the feral animal Declan had been focused on with his own cool regard.

“It’s me,” Adam said quietly.

Declan nearly spit.

“Oh fucking please, Parrish.  This is important.”

But Declan looked over Adam’s shoulder at the defiant jut to Ronan’s chin, the slight flush over his cheekbones, the gentle, confidant way Adam’s slender hand over Ronan’s chest held him as solidly in check as a brick wall.  Matthew’s mouth rounded in a comical “O” shape.  Adam did not break eye contact with Declan.

“It’s me,” he repeated firmly.

“Woah, Ronan, you’re gay?” Matthew blurted.

Everyone looked at him.  Matthew flushed crimson under the malevolent attention.  “Which is totally not a big deal.  Really.  I mean, Adam’s nice.”

Adam’s mouth quirked.  Ronan was practically vibrating beneath Adam’s palm, but it was hard to say which emotion triggered it.

Declan made an exasperated noise.  “Jesus, Ronan.  I thought we were past this.  You do not need to construct every decision you make expressly to piss me off.”

Adam’s regard went from cool to absolutely frigid.  Ronan was sucking all of the air out of the room, less than three seconds from a total nuclear meltdown.  Adam gripped Declan’s shoulder, using it to turn Declan toward the door.  Simultaneously, he instructed Matthew, “Tackle him,” cutting his gaze to Ronan.  Matthew, disinclined to let the Ronan bomb decimate the entire block, got the gist quickly enough to take unsubtle and enthusiastic action.  Declan tried to shake him off, but Adam’s grip was firm, guiding Declan to the door.  Adam called back, “Sit on him if you have to, Matthew!” over Ronan’s wordless howl of frustration.

Declan was still bristling with aggression.

“I wasn’t trying to insult you.  It’s just – “

“Declan,” Adam cut him off, shoving him down the stairs, “I’m gonna tell you a story.” 

Declan came to a dead stop.  “What?”

Adam’s clear, fathomless gaze broke Declan’s anger away from him.

“I’m going to tell you a story,” Adam repeated.

They leaned against Declan’s car.  Adam told the story of the hunt for Glendower, the story of a dream forest, the story of a prince, a dreamer, a magician, a tree light, a ghost, a demon, the story of a near unmaking, the story of a true remaking.  He told it quietly, sparsely, unembellished and linear.  It was in the manner of a news report rather than a fairy tale.  Declan had heard pieces of this story, but only in crumpled shreds, like a dream just outside the edge of memory.  It was also a story of Ronan, a story of a boy buried under an impossible weight of grief and self-loathing, rising out of the cold earth, shedding his poisonous spikes to wear the nobler armor that fit his nobler heart.  Somewhere in the middle of the telling, Chainsaw flew down from Ronan’s open window to alight on Adam’s shoulder, eyeing Declan suspiciously.  Declan noted her presence did not disturb Adam.  He noted the possessive way her claws dug into Adam’s shoulder. 

Declan’s heart bled a little to hear how Ronan had found their mother.  Ronan had not been able to bear telling them anything other than, “She’s gone.”  It went utterly cold during the unmaking, remembering Matthew suddenly catatonic and bleeding from his ears.  It tightened painfully at the realization that Adam was someone Ronan could trust unreservedly with all his dangerous secrets, that it might be Adam that kept Ronan from becoming the spear instead of the hero.

Adam pushed off the car.  “It has nothing to do with you.  Start trusting him to do what he said he would.  He never lies.”

Declan just stood there, staring off into the frigid afternoon, even after Adam had gone back inside.

Ronan was in Adam’s face in a second.  “What the fuck was that?  Using Matthew against me?”

“I don’t think Matthew wanted to watch you beat the shit out of Declan.”

“I didn’t really want to see Declan beat the shit out of Ronan,” Matthew chimed in from across the room with his mouth full of pretzels.

“What were you saying out there?  I can deal with Declan myself!” Ronan spat.

Adam was immune to Ronan’s intimidation tactics.  He slipped into the maelstrom and slid an arm around Ronan’s waist.  Face inches from Ronan’s, he said “I just told him a story.”

Ronan scowled but couldn’t find any more words.  His circuits shorted and sparked when Adam was this close and looking at him in this particular way.

“What story?”

“A true story,” Adam replied before pressing his half smile to Ronan’s mouth.  Ronan’s ire started to run off his shoulders as his attention was skillfully diverted.

Matthew made a loud fake coughing noise.  Ronan jumped back as though he had received an electric shock.

“Declan’s probably, like, waiting for me so . . .”

Ronan and Matthew performed a brotherly handshake.  Ronan came back from closing the door after Matthew shaking his head.

“You really are a magician.”

Adam merely smirked.

Two weeks later, the brothers convened at the Barns after church.  Declan stood beside Ronan on the back porch, watching Matthew gallop after Opal.  Declan cleared his throat, but didn’t speak.  After a few minutes, he cleared it again.

Ronan hissed, “Do you need a fucking cough drop, or do you have something to say?”

Declan’s expression shifted from uncomfortable to annoyed.  Annoyed was familiar and therefore preferred.

“Why are you always such an ass?  I’m trying to say I’m sorry.”

Ronan looked truly baffled.  “What?”

Declan rolled his eyes.  “I’m sorry.  For how I reacted.  About Adam.”

“Did Jesus appear in church when I wasn’t looking this morning?  It’s a fucking miracle.”

Declan sighed.

“Look.  When I heard you were dating someone, I just went to the worst case scenario.”

Ronan managed to look both sour and smug.

“I just never thought it would be a _guy_.”

Ronan’s expression tilted distinctively toward sour with a touch of combative.

“It’s going to take some getting used to.  I mean, the _sin_ –“

Ronan’s nostrils flared and every muscle tensed as he snapped back, “Says the biggest man whore ever to-“

He was cut off by Declan’s bark of laughter.  “Stand down, fuckface!”

Declan punched Ronan’s shoulder.

“I’m joking.  It’s weird, okay?  But you could have picked worse.  At least he’s smarter than you.”

Ronan’s glare was a work of art.


	7. 3 months after - Adam's bad week

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adam has a really bad week.
> 
> "You never pick up your phone."  
> "I will if it's you."  
> "What if I text?"  
> "What am I, your little sister? No texting."  
> "You can't buy me a phone. Boundary. Forbidden."  
> Ronan just grunted.

"Skip it.  You already know everything."

"And yet, attendance is 20% of my grade." Adam quipped, zipping up his backpack.

"Participation is 20%."

"Can't participate if I'm not there."

"Adam," Opal whined hideously, "you haven't seen the baby squirrels!  You can get up close right after dark!"

"I'll see them next weekend."

"They won't be as fluffy!  And Chainsaw will probably eat one!"

Adam huffed noisily.

"I. Have. To. Leave. Now."

"Just wait another hour Parrish.  You can still finish your fucking chemistry if you wait one hour."

Adam absolutely detested this.  Every Sunday night, Ronan and Opal teamed up to badger him into staying longer or staying the night.  He infinitely preferred to stay, but his 18-hour Mondays went from difficult to obliterating if he was up too late.  There was only so much of him to go around and everyone always wanted more.  Opal was particularly obnoxious tonight, giving him mournful looks, dragging at his leg to slow him down, whining and pouting.  She was able to hit an inhuman high pitched frequency that he could nearly hear in his deaf ear.  Eyes shimmering with tears, she dealt a final blow, "Kerah and I have bad dreams when you go."

Ronan, rather than looking mortified, just gave him a mock pitiful look that matched Opal's.  Neither of them seemed capable of understanding their well-intentioned nagging left him deflated and depressed.

"I'm so sick of doing this with both of you!" He snarled.  They both flinched, which scalded his heart.  "Either you want me like I am or you don't want me at all!"

He marched out of the house, slammed into the Hondayota, and sped from Singer's Falls as fast as his POS could carry him (not very fast).  It only took until he reached the Henrietta city limits to start hating himself and the situation.  He should have just stayed.  There was no sleep coming for him tonight.

Monday passed in a relentless haze of obligation after obligation.  And yet, when he could finally surrender to night, sleep did not wash away his thoughts.  It came and went, agitating them, until he gave up just before dawn, tackling homework assignments due later in the week.

****

Monday night, Ronan dreamed of his mother.  Not a nightmare or a haunting, just a memory.  They were lying on their stomachs on the wooden floor in the sitting room, playing marbles.  The warm afternoon light slanted over the game, brilliantly illuminating certain pieces, casting others into deep shadow.  Of course, they were dream marbles, and every one had a unique miniature solar system swirling inside.  Niall had been gone for the better part of two months and Ronan was missing him sorely.  He sat up, disturbing the little universe.  Tiny star clusters rolled under furniture to be ultimately forgotten, eclipsed beneath ordinary dust.

"How do you stand it?" He asked his mother.

One corner of her pretty mouth turned up.

"You'll have to be more specific, dear."

"He's always gone.  He's always leaving you behind. You don't even know where he is, who he's with, what he's doing.  Doesn't it bother you?"

Aurora sat up gracefully, scooting near him on the floor, but did not touch him.

"Your father has a wandering spirit.  If we kept him in one place, he'd get all dusty and dim.  I was made to have a steady one."

Ronan glared at her.  "Aren't you afraid he'll _wander_ too far?  That you'll lose him?"

Aurora picked up a marble, holding it close between her fingers, encouraging him to gaze inside.

"Look at this one," she said rapturously, "there are comets in there, and a bright green star.  It's wonderful."  She turned intently to him.  "How would you hold it, if you wanted to keep it forever?" She asked, offering it to him.

Ronan took it and clenched it inside a fist.

"Mmmm."

"What?  It can't roll away.  No one can take it," he said defensively.

"Can you see it?"

"No, but I know it's there," he replied.

She stroked his clenched fist with one finger.

"Eventually, your hand will get tired.  And why have it if you can't see it?  It’s a thing meant for seeing."

Gently, she opened his fingers.  She flattened his palm, placing the marble at the center.

"Isn't that easier?"

Ronan tipped his palm, rolling the marble into her hand.

"My arm still gets tired. And it rolls right off."

Aurora pulled his hand down to rest, palm up, on the floor.  She placed the marble in it.

"You could balance it right there forever."

"Then I'll never go anywhere!  I'll always be stuck looking at this same marble on this same floor!"

"Ronan," she said, running her fingers over his dark curls.  When she said Ronan, it sounded like she meant _listen_.  "You are so much like your father.  You're right, _you_ won't be able to rest your hand on the floor all your life.  But if you can learn to balance the things you want to hold in an open hand, you can enjoy their beauty and keep them longer than if you clench them in your fist."

She kissed the top of his head before rising to go cook dinner, singing to herself about the Sweet Afton.

At the time, Ronan had been annoyed that she hadn't directly answered his question.

When he awoke, he realized she had answered it quite succinctly.  He found the comet marble in his palm.  He did not close his fingers around it.  Instead, he observed its endless, self-contained wonders, balanced perfectly in the divot of his open hand.

****

Adam slumped listlessly over the table across from Gansey and Henry in the dining hall.  Gansey, no stranger to insomnia, cast him an empathetic glance.

"You look half dead, Parrish.  Save your sex life for the weekend," said Henry.

Adam raised his head to glare at Henry.  "I work for a living, Henry.  The weekend is the only time I can squeeze in a sex life."

"Ah.  Maybe some spontaneity would perk you up then."

Gansey's phone buzzed discretely.  His baffled expression just before he answered stopped the banter from escalating.

"I thought my caller ID was malfunctioning," he paused, listening.  "It's astonishing how well you recall the schedule given the infrequency of your attendance," Gansey said.

Adam laid his head back on the table, groaning.

"Maybe he'll meet you in the parking lot for a quickie," Henry teased, "put a spring in your step."

"Yes, but-" Gansey stopped abruptly. "I really think-" he started again, observing Adam's torpor.  Gansey pulled the phone quickly away from his ear, looking at it with distaste.  "It's for you," he said to Adam.

Adam held out a hand fatalistically, but did not lift his face from the table.

"What?" Adam asked into the receiver.

"You have a break after school?" Ronan asked.

Part of Adam wished he did because he really wanted to get past the fight bit and back to the sex life bit.  The stubborn, tired part of Adam did not have the emotional energy required to accomplish this.

"No.  Straight to the factory."

"When's your break?"

"Around 8."

Total silence indicated the sudden death of the connection.  Adam stared at the device for a few seconds, then plopped it in front of Gansey.

"Are you two in a fight?" Gsnsey asked, obviously worried.

Adam levered himself up to attend to his lunch.   He was not about to waste a meal.

"Eh.  Sort of.  It's complicated."

"Do I need to talk to him?" Gansey asked, clearly reluctant but desperate to help.  “He was quite . . . agitated.”

"No, mother.  We'll figure it out. Maybe it's me being difficult and not him," Adam replied, feeling a little defensive on Ronan’s behalf and supremely annoyed with himself for it.

Gansey looked incredulous.  Adam rolled his eyes.  "Butt out.  It will be fine." Adam hoped he had not just perjured himself.

***

Adam shuffled outside on his break, hoping the cool night air would keep him awake.  At the edge of the parking lot, a raven hulked on top of a sleek black car.  The car's owner hulked on the hood, knees drawn up under his chin.  Adam's stomach flipped.  Neither the strangely aborted phone call nor Ronan's posture gave any hint to his intention.

Adam stepped up beside Ronan, hands stuffed in coat pockets. They looked at each other for a long moment in the ugly orange parking lot lights, both made monochromatic in the limited spectrum.

"I'm sorry," they both said at the same time.  They were equally surprised as neither was easily moved to verbally express personal fault.  They laughed a little.

Adam leaned his back against Ronan and the car.  "I overreacted," Adam said.  "I don't like leaving, but everything else is harder if I stay.  And I hate the fucking nagging about it."

"I know.  I was being an asshole.  I'll throw you out the door this weekend.  I'll slam it in your face and lock it."

Adam snorted.  "That sounds much more considerate.  What about Opal?"

"I'll tie her up and keep her in the closet until you leave."

"You'd have to catch her first," Adam replied.

"You'll run interference," Ronan said, then after a breath, "If you're coming back."

Adam turned, taking a moment just to look at him.  Even tinted unflatteringly orange, he was handsome, and untouchable and fierce.  Adam was pulled effortlessly into his orbit.  What had Adam ever done or been to be so ardently desired by this creature?  He could not unravel it.  He could only be grateful it was so.

"I'll come back as long as you want me," Adam said.

"I always want you," Ronan said gruffly, as though the fact was an annoyance.  He slid off the car and pulled Adam into his arms.  Adam took a moment to surrender the weight of being himself to Ronan's steady strength.  "I'm glad you're here," Adam whispered into Ronan's neck, like it was a secret.  Ronan shivered.

Adam pulled back to glance at his watch. "I've got 15 more minutes."

"When are you off?"

"Not until midnight," Adam said. "Overtime."

Ronan frowned, correctly interpreting this as a no-go for spending the night with Adam.

"I brought food," Ronan said motioning Adam into the car.

Adam ate it ravenously, kissed Ronan soundly, then went back to work.

Turning out his pockets as he undressed at home later, he found something cool and round in his jacket.  It was a marble, but inside, comets swirled around a bright green star.  He wasn't sure about the meaning of this gift, but he was fascinated by it.  He watched it until his eyes grew heavy.  His dreams pulled him along the comet tails at breathtaking speed.

***

Wednesday started a little better, but became grim indeed once Adam realized he would have to spend the entire three hours between the end of school and the beginning of work in the Aglionby library working on a group economics project.  He would not have minded if Henry or Gansey was a part of the group, but he was stuck with Tad Carruthers, of all people.  The other two members of his group were snarky spineless snots barely passing class.  Adam suspected he had been saddled with these dregs to boost their grades enough to keep them in school.  He burned with resentment.

Ever since his relationship with Ronan had become public knowledge a month ago, Adam had endured an insipid drizzling of disparaging comments whenever he was not in the company of Gansey or Henry.  Mostly, he didn't care.  The opinions of the Aglionby student body were of little import, and they were all afraid enough of Ronan's fists and Gansey's influence to do anything more substantial.

Tad, however, was an obtuse blowhard incapable of recognizing the line that should not be crossed.  He also did not appear to realize that Adam's glacial indifference was not the same as genial good humor.

Adam tolerated the derogatory remarks for a little over an hour, distracted by carefully planning out the project and deciding what minuscule parts he could assign to the trio of fuck-ups playing table top football in front of him.  Showing teamwork was a part of the grade - Adam had to make that farce look plausible to score at the top of the curve.

"Does Lynch make you suck his dick every time he buys you dinner?" Tad cut in.

Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum sniggered.

Adam's pencil snapped in half.

"Ooh, hit a nerve," laughed Tad.  "Does he ever let you top?  Nah, you can't afford the privilege."

One moment, Adam was seated, glaring at his textbook.  The next, he was standing, his chair toppled inexplicably far behind him, and grins were melting off three faces.

"Chill, Parrish.  It was a joke.  I don't want your boyfriend using me as a punching bag," stuttered Tad.

"You think I need Ronan to hit you?  All three of you pieces of shit are flunking this class.  I will go into Professor Bryant's office tomorrow with this project complete and tell him you three fucknuts never even showed up to meet me.   I will have humiliating porn planted in each of your dorm rooms.  I will research every one of your fathers' personal lives until I find out their secrets and I will use it to own all of you," he said in a quiet, level hiss, drenched in frosty malice.

Three sets of wide eyes stared back at him in mute terror.

"Sounds fun," said a highly cultured voice behind Adam.  "I think I already know a little secret about James Carrington Sr. I could tell you," Henry added.

He stepped directly next to Adam, shoulder to shoulder, looking coolly down at Adam's prey.  Adam did not look over.  He trusted Henry to be in exactly the right place.

"But," continued Adam, "if you can sit down, shut up, and do what I tell you, I'll pretend I've never heard you speak."

Vigorous nodding.  Henry pouted.

"Too forgiving, St. Parrish.  Now what will I do with my afternoon?  Such an interesting subject.  I might look into it anyway, just for fun, you know."

Adam arched an amused eyebrow.  "I suppose you need to keep busy," he replied dryly.

Henry heaved a dramatic sigh. "I'll do what I must.  These long days are such a burden.  Peace out, Adam bro."

Adam bumped Henry's knuckles.

The study group became significantly more civil and focused.

As satisfying as it was to exercise a little power, causing three rich brats to shit themselves was emotionally draining.  By the time Adam finished work at 9:30, he was exhausted.

The musty, cramped confines of his apartment squeezed in on him.  He briefly contemplated heading to Monmouth for the night, but he had no idea if Ronan was there.  If he was, Adam wouldn't get much sleep.  If he wasn't, Adam would just lie awake in Ronan's bed, feeling lonely and pathetic.  Adam brought out the comet marble, rolling it back and forth over his desk, studying it absently.  Practicality was a depressing business.  He set to his pile of homework.

***

Thursday afternoon, loitering at Boyd's reading his literature assignment, Adam was called out for a tow.  Ordinarily Boyd took care of these, but he was intent on the shocks for his race truck and couldn't be bothered.

Adam's stomach dropped at the sight of the blue pickup.  It was his father.  Would the miseries of this week ever relent?  Adam pushed through the weighty silence smothering them both, competently hooking up the truck.  His hands were white knuckled on the steering wheel as his father got in and slammed the door.  Adam did not even glance at his father while he asked, "Shop or somewhere else?"

Robert Parrish grunted unpleasantly.  "Not keen on the help Boyd hires.  Better off fixing it myself."

Adam just nodded.  They were only 10 minutes from the trailer park.  He could survive 10 minutes.  Adam wistfully hoped for 10 solid minutes of tense silence, but it wasn't to be.

"I'm surprised you still bother working," Robert began, snide and derogatory.  Adam did not so much as flick a look at him.  8 minutes to go.

"I hear you're not just hanging out with those bitch boys no more."

Adam gripped the wheel so hard he was afraid he might bend it.  Robert's expression looked smug and expectant, souring as Adam stared stonily at the road ahead.  6 minutes.

"Martin Jenning said he saw you _kissing_ that Lynch boy,” the way his father said it, _kissing_ might as well have been _fucking_.  “Not just in public, but outside a church of all places.  I told him your mother and I have washed our hands of you.  That's not how we raised you."

Adam's jaw was clenched so hard it ached.  The gravel driveway of the trailer park was only a few more minutes away.  His rage was so hot, it felt like his internal organs were cooking.  He might die from internal combustion before he got there.

Adam's father, sensing victory, struck again, unsatisfied with any assault until Adam was broken and bleeding.  "And here you are, driving Boyd's truck, axle grease on your hands.  What's the point of being a rich boy's pet if he don't feed you?  You just like being on your knees?"

Adam slammed on the brakes, swerving the truck into the overgrown brush on the shoulder.

"What the hell?"

Adam burst out of the vehicle.  He unhooked the pickup, kicking the fender once, twice.  He stalked over to the passenger side and ripped open the door.

"Get out," he said savagely.

Robert Parrish looked taken aback.  "I think you forgot how to do your job, boy.  I ain't paying for this."

"I don't care," Adam growled through his teeth.  "Get out."

"You can't just throw a fit any time someone tells you the truth," Robert sniped, getting out of the truck.

Adam whirled on him, swift and vicious as a rattlesnake.  Robert involuntarily took a step back.

"You don't know a damn thing about me.  And as for Ronan, there's nothing bought or sold between us.  There never will be."

Adam returned to the truck and drove away, leaving his father in a cloud of dust.  His entire being was a chaotic storm for the rest of the day.  An image of Blue the day he’d first met her, beacon of righteous fury, shone in his thoughts, saying _I am not a prostitute_ crisp as a winter morning.  Being with Ronan absolutely never made him feel used or like a user, but sometimes the constant barrage of contrary opinions stirred doubt.  The only cure was time with Ronan, which he would not get until Friday night.

He battled through another overtime shift at the factory.  He stumbled in the door of his apartment and collapsed on his bed like a dead thing.  Despite the exhaustion swamping him, he stayed awake for a little while.  When he realized he was waiting for Ronan's knock, and that it would not be forthcoming, he rolled miserably on his side to force himself to sleep.  The contents of the comet marble, luminous enough to be visible in the dark, paved the pathway for him.

***

Friday's school and work day was a hazy miserable slog.  The drive to the Barns seemed to take forever.  He rolled down the window as he made his way up the gently turning driveway.  The familiar smell of the valley eased the knot of his anxiety.  Between school, homework, and multiple overtime shifts, he'd only seen Ronan for 30 minutes all week.  Adam was disturbed by the intensity of his need.  They’d only been together for a few _months,_ but it already felt like there was no other way to motivate himself through his days.  He had grown excessively accustomed to the way Ronan's combination of tart humor and aggressive affection made him feel complete, wanted, home.  The Pig's presence in the parking area pricked a sliver of annoyance through him.  He did want to see his friends, but after this shitstorm week, he would have preferred just a few hours with Ronan alone, where he was not required to be clever or amusing, kind or self-contained.  Ronan was a difficult person to be with because he pulled no bullshit - every moment was unfiltered.  But he also required no bullshit, which made him the easiest possible person to be with.

Adam paused in the hallway in front of the living room, peering in.  Gansey was settled in one of the oversized armchairs, Blue in his lap.  Henry was sprawled in the other, socks and shoes off, letting Opal carefully paint his toes with bright red sparkly polish.  Defying Adam's expectation, the paint job was coming out salon perfect.  Blue's nails looked to be drying, if the way she was draped across Gansey was any indication, and there appeared to be some kind of pattern on them.  Ronan lounged indolently on the couch, head propped on the armrest.  The gap between his long form and the back of the couch was exactly where Adam needed to be right now.

Ordinarily, Adam and Ronan reserved the more intimate side of their relationship from their friends.  They made plenty of lewd jokes about sex, but gave very little indication of the emotional landscape beneath that.  Adam should go in, shove Ronan's feet off the chaise, and settle into the normal Friday night routine.  He was so bone weary, the facade felt like a form of torture.

These were his friends.  They'd propped him up whenever they could all week.  They wouldn't judge him, and even if they did, it wouldn't matter.

He made directly for the couch while everyone greeted him.  Opal merely gave him a shrewd look, glanced at Ronan, and returned to her paint job. Adam unhesitatingly climbed over Ronan with a brief order to "Scoot over."  Ronan did not allow his facial expression to change, but his swift, silent obedience said enough.  Adam collapsed against his side, arm over stomach, leg over leg. Though he was aware of the surprised silence blanketing the room, he allowed himself a full 60 seconds to absorb the sense of safety and comfort with his eyes closed.  Ronan's pulse had accelerated, but he wrapped an arm around Adam's back just the same.

Adam opened his eyes with a deep sigh, ready to engage, but not to move.

Blue and Gansey wore complimentary expressions of concern.  Henry's face was uncharacteristically wistful.

"Shitty week," Adam offered.

Gently, they drew it out of him.

The overtime:  "Do you ever sleep, Parrish?" Henry asked.

The library incident:  Adam glossed over it, but Henry was happy to supply the unpleasant details.

"Carruthers," Ronan growled, "I will kick the living shit out of him."

"If you beat up everyone who insults me, you're going to have to start with yourself," Adam said.

"I agree with Ronan," Blue said.  "That guy requires a shit kicking."  She shook her fist with menace.

Gansey did not object.  In fact, he looked ready to mete out a little violence himself.

Adam grinned a little.  "I had it under control."

Henry smiled slyly.  "I expect some very embarrassing rumors will be circulating next week.  Bruises fade, humiliation endures."

"What did you do?" Gansey asked warily, looking at Henry.

"Oh, nothing much.  His father spends company money in very interesting ways.  Perhaps this will become more common knowledge.  And I believe his roommate may discover he has a very peculiar fetish."

Gansey’s expression glimmered with a hint of malice.  Blue's smile was as sharp as Ronan's.  "Serves the bastard right," she said.

With hesitation, Adam revealed the worst.  “I had to tow my dad’s truck.”

No jokes lightened the atmosphere.  Ronan gripped the back of Adam’s shirt in a tight fist.

“What happened?” Ronan asked, malevolence in every syllable.

Henry’s recitation of Carruthers’ comments had been bad enough.  His father’s accusation was in essence the same, it just felt uglier and more substantial.  There was no way he would reveal the details of that conversation to any of them.  Ronan would probably end up in prison on an assault charge, and Blue might very well end up there with him.  It warmed Adam to realize he was so fiercely protected.  Most of the sting of his encounter with his father was soothed.

“He doesn’t approve of my lifestyle choices,” Adam replied mildly.  Ronan was trembling all over with the urge to enact crippling violence.  Adam squeezed Ronan’s leg with his own.  He felt Opal’s hand steadily grip his, although he couldn’t see her sitting on the floor next to the couch.

“I kicked him out.  Left him and his piece of shit truck in the dirt.  Fuck him.”  He had learned from Ronan the value in this type of posturing.  Committing to it made it feel more like truth and less like bravado.  Here, nestled against Ronan, in the sanctuary of the Barns, surrounded by his friends, he was untouchable.  He was a king.

Blue nodded, approving.  “Good for you, Adam.  He deserves worse.”

“I will kill him,” Ronan added quietly.

“No you won’t.  What would Opal and I do if you’re in jail?  She might have to live with Declan.”

“I _hate_ Declan’s house,” Opal moaned.

Ronan sighed heavily.  “Fine.  But I’m definitely fucking up Carruthers.”

“Isn’t he suffering enough?” asked Gansey.

“No,” Ronan griped. 

“Just keep it reasonable,” Adam said, “He’s got plenty of other punishments coming his way.”

“Probably can’t take more than a couple hits anyway,” Ronan grumbled.

The others meandered off into other topics.  It only took about 15 minutes of the noise of their familiar voices to lull Adam into sleep.

"Wake up, shithead," Ronan said, nudging him gently, "My arm is asleep."

Adam blinked slowly, coming back from a deep blue dream that involved a small boat and a tranquil sea of stars.  The room was empty.

"Where is everybody?" He asked around an enormous yawn.

"Gone."

"Opal?"

"Bed."

Adam clumsily climbed over Ronan to set slightly unsteady legs on the floor.

"What time is it?"

Ronan stretched and shook out his arm before consulting his phone.  "1:30."

"Shit," Adam said, stifling another yawn.  Had he ever been this tired?  Definitely, but it felt like a milestone every time. "How long have you been laying there listening to me snore?"

Ronan shrugged.  "A while."  He pointed to a wet patch on his chest.  "You fucking drool too."

Adam flushed a little.  "Sorry," he said, wiping the side of his mouth self-consciously.

"Whatever.  Opal's worse," Ronan said, looking more amused than put upon.  He jerked his chin at Adam.  "Upstairs.  Bed."

"You coming with?" Adam asked.  He cringed inwardly, feeling excessively needy, having just kept Ronan immobilized for the last few hours.  Ronan was a habitual insomniac with a sleeping schedule that could only be described as erratic.  He was just as likely to come to bed as stay up until dawn playing video games.

"Yep," he replied, to Adam’s immense satisfaction.

Once they were settled in bed, comfortably shielded by the dark, Ronan said, "Look.  I know you work hard to make ends meet and shit. And when you can get overtime, you need the money.  But," Ronan broke off.  Barreling bullishly into an issue was more his style than trying to be considerate and he was awkward when he attempted the later.

Adam found himself gently amused.  He was glad the darkness hid his slight grin.  He lightly traced the scars on Ronan's forearm.

"But?" He asked, not sharply, just curious.

"I don't like to see you like this. You're completely fucking wrecked."

Adam made a noise of reluctant agreement.  He couldn't dispute the obvious.

"I haven't seen you for days, and now I've finally got you where I want you, you're too tired to do anything but drool on me.  I'm gonna get fucking carpal tunnel if this keeps up."

Adam laughed a little, shoving at Ronan playfully.  "You’re gross."

"Seriously, though.  If you're a little short, just fucking take some shit home from the Barns on Sundays.  Or take me to the grocery store with you and pretend you forgot your wallet."

Adam groaned.

"Don't EVER pay for food when Gansey is around."

Adam groaned louder.

"I'm not joking.  He shits $50s.  He doesn't even notice.  He doesn't care.  It's not worth the stress."

Adam's perception of his relationship with Gansey had changed so dramatically in the last year, he reluctantly admitted (not out loud) that Ronan was probably right.

"I know you won't ask, so come up with whatever sneaky underhanded mastermind bullshit you need to.  It doesn't matter.  Just stop doing this crap.  It's pissing me off."

Adam was waiting to feel the combo of bruised pride and righteous anger that usually accompanied this subject.  It didn't come.  Ronan Lynch was attempting to be tactful.  If that wasn't a show of respect, he didn't know what one looked like.  It didn't feel at all like Gansey saying "I'll take care of it."  He liked the way Ronan found a way to make his caring for Adam sound selfish.  It was easier to swallow, probably because it was a little bit true.  He had told his father nothing was bought or sold between them.  This tentative offering did not feel like a transaction.  It was different, the way everything with Ronan was different.  Adam found Ronan's mouth in the dark.  With careful thoroughness, Adam told Ronan how he felt in the silent language they both understood best.

"Okay," Adam said, "No more overtime.  You pay for groceries.  You and Opal eat anything good I buy anyway."

"Finally," said Ronan, "I can get actual brand name food to keep at your place.  Frosted Flakes are supposed to come in a blue box with a fucking tiger on it, not a plastic baggie."

"They're exactly the same.  Opal likes the plastic bag.  Chewy."

"She just says that to make you feel better.  She likes the box.  It's crunchier."

Adam kicked Ronan.

"And you need a fucking cell."

Adam stiffened, his father's nasty assumptions stabbing at him.  Food was one thing - they practically lived together and the mine and yours was already hard to sort out.  A cell phone was on another level.

"You are not buying me a phone.  I can't afford the plan anyway."

"You needed me.  All week, you needed me and you couldn't call."  Adam's resolve softened a little but not enough to permit it.

"You never pick up your phone."

"I will if it's you."

"What if I text?"

"What am I, your little sister? No texting."

"You can't buy me a phone.  Boundary.  Forbidden."

Ronan just grunted.

They shifted together restlessly until they found a new comfortable spot.

Adam listened to Ronan breathe for a few minutes before asking, "Are you asleep?"

"Yes.  I'm dreaming about a roll of duct tape I can use on your mouth."

Adam trailed his hand over Ronan's chest, down his stomach, and ran his finger along the edge of Ronan's boxers.  He enjoyed feeling Ronan's abs clench.

"I'm concerned about this carpal tunnel problem."

"I thought you were tired," Ronan breathed.

"I got a solid nap in."

Ronan did not hesitate.  Adam felt wide awake.

Adam methodically unpacked his bag at his apartment Sunday night. Something unfamiliar was nestled right at the bottom.  Frustration surged through Adam.  He would ignore it and give it back next week.  The offending object was atypically small. A sticky note was affixed to the back.  "I didn't buy it," proclaimed Ronan's terse handwriting.

Adam peeled off the note, examining it more closely, his curiosity muting his offense.  It was subtly colored, dark but not black.  There were a couple mysterious slender buttons on the sides, but fewer than most phones he'd seen.  No charging port was anywhere evident.  It took him a few minutes of playing with it to activate it.  There was nothing logical about discovering the limited functions; this was not really a substitute for a smart phone.  It could call and receive, take photos, and text (Adam smirked), but nothing else he could immediately figure out. Adam opened the text function.  Ronan's number was conveniently programmed in.

 **To Ronan** :  Fine.  You win.  Even though you cheated.

Ronan responded less than two minutes later.

 **To Adam** : Flectere si nequero superos, Acheronta movebo

 **To Ronan** :  So you do text.

 **To Adam** :  Only to gloat.

 **To Ronan** : We need to go to the store tomorrow.  Bring Opal.

 **To Adam** :  She'll pick the box.

 **To Ronan** :  Bag.

 **To Adam** : Loser cleans Chainsaw's cage Friday.

 **To Ronan** : You will be elbow deep in bird shit.  No coaching Opal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Flectere si nequero superos, Acheronta movebo  
> If I cannot bend the will of heaven, I will move hell. - Virgil


	8. 6 months after - The scent of gasoline

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blue gestured at Gansey. “We’re young and in love. You don’t see me jumping Gansey every single time I see him.”  
> “It’s the smell,” Opal interjected, not looking up from the game board.  
> “What’s the smell?” Blue asked, a little chagrinned about having made the “jumping” comment in front of Opal.  
> “That car stuff. That gasoline.”  
> “Right,” said Blue, “It stinks. So?”  
> “Kerah likes that smell.”  
> Gansey screwed up his face. “I’m not sure this is a healthy environment for children.”

After the New Year, it had become a ritual for all of them to gather at the Barns on Friday nights. Generally, they had dinner and hung out, Henry, Gansey, and Blue departing a little after midnight, Adam staying through the weekend. Sometimes Adam or Blue had to work and couldn’t make until late. Sometimes Henry had to tend to his minions at Litchfield house. Regardless, they all made their ways up the winding drive to the inviting ramble of farmhouse at some point in the evening.

This particular Friday, all were assembled by a little after 7:00pm, except Adam, who was due to arrive from work relatively soon. Tonight was Blue’s turn to provide dinner. A lasagna was warming in the oven, broccoli ready to hit the steamer, a pie chilling in the fridge. Blue enjoyed cooking in the roomy kitchen of the Barns, empty of well-meaning, bossy relatives and expansively stocked with anything she could ever want or need. It didn’t bother her to permit Gansey, Henry, or Ronan to purchase the raw materials for her culinary creations when she contributed most of the labor.

Henry was playing checkers with Opal. Opal had developed a special fondness for him after he had gifted her with a silver bracelet adorned with perfectly tuned little bells and chips of opals. She had chosen her name inspired by the little flecks of rainbow light glinting from it. Blue found it to be appallingly extravagant for a half-wild goat girl, but it had gone a long way in thawing Ronan and Adam both toward Henry, and Opal was deeply taken with it. The light, ethereal chiming it made suited her capricious, fairy-like movements perfectly. “Better than a fucking goat bell,” Ronan had grudgingly conceded.

Ronan kept intruding on the checkers game with terse instructions to Opal, who swatted at him. “I’m playing with Henry,” she whined at him.

Henry flashed his showiest smile at Ronan, who huffed irritably, retreating to observe from a slightly greater distance, arms crossed.

Gansey said he was teaching Blue to play chess, but he was mostly talking about the symbolism of each piece in Renaissance England, rather than the mechanics and strategy of the game. She shot an imploring look at Ronan.

“You could help me, you know. I’d probably only smack you once or twice.”

Ronan scoffed, refusing to help her out of pure spite. He hadn’t seen Adam in two days and was painfully anxious for him to arrive. He was also furious with himself for his own desperate neediness. Altogether, he was in a shit mood.

Suddenly, Chainsaw burst into flight from her perch near the big bay window, heading for the front hall. Ronan’s heart constricted painfully.

The smell of mechanical fluids preceded Adam into the room. Ronan inhaled deeply. Opal jumped halfway out of her seat, wrinkled her nose in distaste, and sat back down, shaking her head. Chainsaw proudly rode Adam’s shoulder, as though she had personally retrieved him from wherever he had been. Ronan nodded his approval at her. His hair was sticking up around his forehead where he had likely absently pushed motor oil into it. There was a dark grease mark wrapping around the left side of his neck to the back. He was still wearing his coveralls, rolled down and tied at the waist, threadbare t-shirt underneath. Ronan’s pulse sped up a little.

“Hey. Sorry I’m late. I had some trouble with a fuel pump.”

“Thank God you’re here,” Blue said emphatically. “I need someone to help me beat Gansey at this stupid game so he’ll shut up.”

Gansey looked wounded. “I was just trying to add a little background. I was about to tell you that the Queen is the most powerful player on the board. And a fascinating anecdote about Catherine the Great.”

“Adam, save me,” she moaned.

Mirroring Blue’s tone in her piping little voice, Opal added, “I need help beating Henry at this circle game. Adam, save me.”

Adam smiled broadly, mostly at Opal, who absorbed his amusement greedily.

“I was helping you, brat,” Ronan snapped.

“Adam is better,” she snapped just as sharply. This was probably untrue, as Adam was more inclined to get theoretical than Ronan, but Ronan did not disagree with the sentiment behind it.

“I can probably manage both,” he smirked, “but I’m gonna wash up real quick first.”

His gaze caught Ronan’s for a long, electric moment, making all kinds of salacious promises for the weekend.

“Good,” remarked Blue. “You smell like the inside of the Pig.”

Now Gansey was truly offended. Adam heard him rebutting as he left the room. “The Pig has a very subtle aura of gasoline, charmingly complimented by other distinctions of unique character. Adam just smells like he was working in a garage, which he was.”

Ronan was able tolerate Gansey and Blue bickering for approximately 90 seconds before he bolted from the room, muttering, “I need to check on something.” This was followed by the very subtle sound of him running up the stairs.

Blue glared at the empty space where Ronan had been. “You’d think he hadn’t seen Adam in a month! He has company over. Adam will be here all weekend! I’m sure Adam will shoo him back down here.”

Gansey made a little dissenting sound. Blue frowned at him. “You think not?”

Gansey looked like he really didn’t want to discuss it, but hesitantly said, “Ronan’s not the only one who does that kind of thing.”

“Oh please, Adam’s way more mature than Ronan.”

“Not in this particular area. I would say the feeling is mutual. Often. Noisily so.”

“Ew,” said Blue.

“Yes,” said Gansey.

Henry was grinning slyly. “Ah, young love.”

Blue gestured at Gansey. “We’re young and in love. You don’t see me jumping Gansey every single time I see him.”

“It’s the smell,” Opal interjected, not looking up from the game board.

“What’s the smell?” Blue asked, a little chagrinned about having made the “jumping” comment in front of Opal.

“That car stuff. That gasoline.”

“Right,” said Blue, “It stinks. So?”

“Kerah likes that smell.”

Gansey screwed up his face. “I’m not sure this is a healthy environment for children.”

Henry laughed. Opal sighed dramatically. “They’re probably kissing. They’re always kissing. It’s boring.” She made an elaborate move that was certainly illegal but very creative. “King me,” she said to Henry.

“How could I refuse such a bold request?”

Ronan was aware he had just made an ass of himself, but he did not care. If he’d arrived in his school uniform all tidy and immaculate, maybe Ronan could have lasted until after everyone left. (This was nonsense, of course, immaculate Adam was exactly as enticing as disheveled Adam.) But his rumpled appearance and the miasma of gasoline around him – it was unfair to expect Ronan to ignore it.

Adam was already stripped down to his boxers and had the water running when Ronan slipped in the bathroom door. Before Ronan could touch him, Adam said “You’re shirt’s gonna reek if I get my hands all over it.”

The shirt hit the floor in a single efficient movement. Then Ronan’s face was in Adam’s neck and Ronan’s hands were sliding down his spine and a familiar fuzzy euphoria engulfed them both. Ronan’s teeth grazed Adam’s collar bone, followed by his tongue.

“You smell so fucking sexy,” Ronan growled.

Adam captured Ronan’s mouth, plundering it greedily before he replied, “Really? Sweaty and covered in gasoline?”

“Are you complaining?” Ronan asked, nipping at Adam’s earlobe, pushing him up against the wall.

Adam pulled Ronan’s mouth back to his own. “No,” Adam said, pausing to tenderly bite Ronan’s lower lip. “But I think you should lose the pants, too. Just to be safe. Wouldn’t want to offend your guests.”

Adam joyfully kissed Ronan’s smile as he swiftly complied.

15 minutes after he’d departed, Ronan casually returned to the living room, at a much more sedate pace than he’s left it. His expression was soft, unguarded, a little smile haunting the corners of his mouth.

“What’s wrong with your face?” Blue asked, smirking.

“Been wondering the same thing about you since I met you,” he said, but it lacked his usual zing. He was still too happy to properly put her in her place.

“What were you checking on?” She teased.

Ronan flushed. It was blindingly obvious what he’s been checking on.

“Parrish’s zipper is in working order, I assume?” asked Henry dryly.

Gansey looked as though he really wanted to pretend they were not talking about this. Blue and Henry mirrored sly grins. Ronan was not to be flustered in his own home.

“Yep, pants and contents of are all up to code. It was a rigorous inspection. Safety first.”

His gambit was successful. “Oh my God,” Blue said, a little pink in the cheeks, “Opal is sitting right there.”

“I live here,” Opal said, resigned, turning a long-suffering look on Blue. “It’s always like this.”

Adam strolled in, hair still wet. “Did you eat yet?”

“No,” Blue grumbled, “but we would have if we’d known you’d be so busy right when you got here.”

Adam shrugged, not remotely embarrassed. He gave Ronan an intimate smile. “What can I say? He’s a generous host. Very welcoming.” Ronan looked like he might whisk Adam right back upstairs.

“Food,” said Henry. “Definitely time to turn to discussion of food.”

Adam turned from Ronan to Blue, who was already heading for the kitchen. “So,” he said, throwing a friendly arm over her shoulder, “you haven’t beaten him yet.”

Blue shook her head remorsefully. “We haven’t really played. He just keeps talking.”

Henry moved to console Gansey, who was looking distinctly put out. Ronan frowned at the forlorn expression on Opal’s face. Before he could go to her, however, Adam turned his head back toward her and held out a beckoning hand. She skipped over to take it as Adam and Blue continued to the kitchen.

“His distraction makes him easy prey. Just ignore what he’s saying and focus on your options. It’s a puzzle to unravel. He likes to make it more puzzling.”

Blue nodded thoughtfully.

“Richardman,” Henry said, “save your stories for the right audience. You could come play at Litchfield house. They’ll hang on every word.” This buoyed Gansey’s flagging spirits.

Ronan followed behind all of them, deeply satisfied with his life at the moment.


	9. 7 Months - College Blues

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adam selects a college, but finds himself less enthusiastic about leaving than he imagined.
> 
> He went on, though he could not believe he was connecting something so enjoyable with something he so despised, "We'll try phone sex."  
> Adam snorted. "You hate the phone."  
> "The sex part is my incentive. If you want me to pick up, you better plan to talk dirty."

Adam quietly entered the upstairs apartment of Monmouth Manufacturing.   Despite this subdued appearance, Ronan noticed something hectic about him.  Was his hair more rumpled than usual?  His tee-shirt slightly askew?  Or was it the agitated way he scanned the huge open space? Whatever it was, it caused a spike of adrenaline to pump through Ronan. 

Wordlessly, Adam sent a questioning look at Gansey's back.  Ronan gestured to indicate earbuds.  Hunched over his desk, Gansey was so far oblivious to Adam's arrival.  In response, Adam tilted his chin toward Ronan's bedroom before making a beeline for it.  No persuasion was required for Ronan to follow with alacrity.

The second Ronan shut the door, Adam tossed his messenger bag carelessly to the side and thumped Ronan up against it, causing the door to rattle in its frame.  It took hardly any time at all for Ronan's ardor to rise to an equal frenzy.  It drove him to the fucking edge knowing this tempest was always hiding under Adam's cool, calculated exterior, especially because it was reserved exclusively for Ronan.  Nothing made him feel more ecstatically alive than Adam aggressively devouring him.  Ronan's hands dug into Adam's skin, his heart beating _mine-mine-mine_.

Adam was in no mood for teasing.  He had them both out of their shirts inside of 5 minutes and was mouthing his way down Ronan's torso inside of 10, teeth grazing ribs, tongue forging a path along a muscled ridge.  The door rattled again every time Ronan's head or hips thudded against it while his fingers tangled in Adam's hair.  It only took another 8 minutes for Ronan be completely undone, sink to the floor beside Adam, and proceed to reciprocate.  It took nearly 10 more minutes before he succeeded.  Ronan hoped Gansey had been listening to something loud.

Breathless and mostly bare, side by side with Ronan on the floor, Adam finally spoke.

"Hi," Adam said.

Ronan couldn't help but laugh.  "Hey," he replied.

Adam turned his head.  A rather impressive dust bunny, complete with a manky raven feather, caught his eye.

"Your floor is kind of gross."

"If I'd known we'd be having sex here, I might have cleaned," Ronan said wryly.

Adam laid there for another minute, eyes closed, catching his breath.  He rolled to sit, pulling his pants back on.  When he rose, he did not hunt for his shirt, as expected, but flopped down on the bed, eyes intent on the ceiling.  Ronan followed suit, coming to rest crossways over Adam, one hand under his chin on Adam's stomach.  One of Adam's hands was methodically wringing the fingers on the other.  Ronan snagged one of them and tucked it under his jaw.  Slender fingers traced absently over the sharp angles of Ronan's face.

"When does this get less . . . intense?" Adam asked.

"What?" Ronan asked, moving his lips softly over Adam's knuckles.

"This.  Us," Adam said.  "It's only been a couple days since the last time but it's all I've been thinking about all day."

Ronan smiled sharply.  "Who could blame you?  I'm incredibly sexy."

Adam made a dismissive sound, flicking the comment away with the fingers of his free hand.  "I just - it's got to level out soon, right?  Like going for more than a couple days isn't going to be a big deal."

Ronan had a sinking feeling about the direction of this conversation.  Sex was not all Adam was referring to.  He didn't say anything.

"I decided on Princeton," Adam finally said dully.  "Sent the letter today."

Ronan did not miss the lack of enthusiasm.  They had mostly avoided college talk so far, but the school year was almost over and it loomed large in the background.  Adam had secured full rides to three of the many schools he'd been accepted to.  Princeton wasn't around the corner, but it was a hell of a lot closer than Boston.

"All my life, all I wanted was to get out of this town, and now that I finally can, I kind of want to stay," Adam finally turned his gaze to meet Ronan's at the last bit. 

As much as the thought of Adam leaving twisted his guts, he knew it was a necessity.  He sighed.  God, he hated having to be the reasonable one. That was supposed to be Adam's job.

"You can come home on your breaks and shit.  We both went 18 years without getting any.  We can handle a couple months," Ronan said flatly.  He went on, though he could not believe he was connecting something so enjoyable with something he so despised, "We'll try phone sex."

Adam snorted.  "You hate the phone."

"The sex part is my incentive.  If you want me to pick up, you better plan to talk dirty."

It was mostly a joke, and Adam smiled a little, but his melancholy still coated him.  Adam captured Ronan's hand, carefully matching palms first, then merging fingers one by one.

"Long distance fucks up a lot of relationships," Adam said, gaze focused on their entwined hands.  "I don't want to fuck it up.  I want it to work."

"Adam," Ronan said, hating what he was about to say but knowing it to be truth.  Adam's eyes met his and held.  "If you stay, it won't work.  You'll resent it a little until you resent it a lot and then you'll go for good.  It only works if you go."

Adam pressed his lips together and let out a long breath through his nose.  He squeezed Ronan's hand twice.  "I know."

"So we'll do the long distance thing.  Whatever.  You'll come home when you can.  I'll come up to fucking New Jersey when I can.  It'll work.  I mean, fuck," he gestured at himself with their clasped hands. "Dreamer.  Magician," he gestured at Adam.  "We do impossible shit all the time, for fun.  This isn't even close to impossible.  Just fucking inconvenient."

Adam's mouth turned up then, the real thing this time.  The rhythm of Ronan's heart did something complicated.  This autumn was going to be miserable.  Adam dragged Ronan up toward him until his face was close enough to kiss him with lingering softness, fingers trailing gently over his scalp.  Gansey's intrusive knock on the door was actually a relief - it was getting a little emotional in here and Ronan made it a policy not to cry before dinner.

"Are you guys finally done in there?" Gansey asked peevishly.  "We're going to be late."

Ronan levered himself off of Adam.

"Jesus shit, Gansey, yes.  It's just Nino's," he said, ducking into his shirt and tossing Adam's at him.

Apparently, this response signaled to Gansey that it was safe to enter.

"I told Henry we would meet him at 7:00 and it's already," he looked at his ostentatious watch, "6:50."

Neither Ronan nor Adam seemed inclined to pick up the pace, but they all made it out to the Pig soon enough.  Gansey frowned thoughtfully when Ronan followed Adam to the backseat, rather than claiming his usual spot in the front, but he did not remark on it.

"Ronan, if the two of you are going to keep making that much noise when you're . . . romantically engaged, you're buying me some noise cancelling headphones.  Good ones."

Ronan presented his middle finger where it would catch Gansey's eye in the rear view mirror.  Behind the sarcastic salute, Gansey caught a glimpse of Adam resting his head on Ronan's shoulder, the two of them squeezed together as though they were trying to fit in a single seat.  There was something so powerfully intimate about the way they were angled toward one another Gansey felt like an intruder in his own car.  He swallowed the acerbic comment he'd been about to make regarding Ronan's bedroom door, finishing the drive in silence.

Emerging from the car at Nino's, they transformed themselves back to the Adam and Ronan everyone was familiar with.  Ronan made a point to "accidentally" kick everyone under the table at least once, hard enough to bruise ankles.  Adam laughed at Ronan and Blue's banter, made dry, sarcastic comments, and ate half the pizza delivered on his own.  He managed to make his college announcement at Harry's later that evening wearing a convincing smile, genially accepting congratulations.

Though everyone noticed Ronan and Adam's hands seemed to be inextricably linked all evening, they assumed it was some possessive impulse of Ronan's, rather than Adam clinging fiercely to something he would not allow himself to lose.


	10. 8 Months After - Ronan and Adam are interrupted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Hey, Adam. Didn’t you hear us knocking?”  
> Adam opened his eyes to look at her, but did not rush to answer.  
> “Where’s Ronan?” she asked.  
> “Um,” Adam was still working on regaining the power of speech, “Outside, I think.”  
> “Weird,” remarked Blue. I thought I just heard him.”  
> “TV,” Adam replied, gesturing.  
> “I didn’t think you could say ‘Jesus Mary fuck’ on TV.”  
> Adam glowered at her.  
> Gansey looked utterly bewildered. “Are you in the middle of . . . something . . .” he asked, clearly gaining understanding and finding it horribly awkward by the time he got to “something.”  
> “Not anymore,” Adam bit back, a little more crankily than intended.  
> 

Adam returned to the Barns in the early summer afternoon to find it disappointingly Ronan-less. The air conditioning in his shitbox was broken again and despite driving with the windows rolled down, his back was sticky with sweat. He could feel it pooling unpleasantly behind his knees. The protected valley sheltering the Barns was never as hot as town, but today even the breeze from the fields felt like the humid breath of a dragon.  
  
He heaved a grateful sigh entering the relative coolness of the house. The word “home” floated through his thoughts before he could analyze it. Adam had vacated the St Agnes apartment after graduation. Once school was over, he really only needed to be in town for work and Ronan had very vocally pointed out that the nominal rent was a ludicrously unnecessary drain on Adam’s finances, that the apartment was a shitty hole in the wall, and that Ronan was enduring excessive back pain from sleeping in the tiny bed. When Adam had pointed out no one was forcing Ronan to stay, and, in fact, he had been a hindrance to important school work, Ronan had merely sighed heavily and asked why Adam wanted Chainsaw to be lonely. “And Opal may be a freaky little goat monster, but she nags like a girl. ‘Where’s Adam? When’s Adam coming back?’ It’s fucking pitiful. Awfully selfish of you, Parrish.” And thus, Adam had been coaxed to move in with his boyfriend with all the high romance typical of Ronan.  
  
It was not difficult to be pleased with a permanent place here. The Barns had become a haven to him months ago. Something about this place worked its alchemy on him every day. It was practical – a farmhouse, pastures slowly becoming populated with non-drowsing livestock, the namesake barns adorning them. It was also otherworldly – a thousand improbable details littering its corners, flowers that only bloomed in moonless starlight, music coming from unexpected hollows. Yet, somehow, the practical and the magical were inextricably part of the Barns, as imagined and lived by Ronan Lynch. Adam thought the rightness of everything at the Barns would make him stand out more starkly as wrong but the opposite was true. The more he immersed himself in the feeling of belonging, the more he obviously belonged. A part of him had begun to worry what he would do when Ronan’s restless heart inevitably moved beyond him, forcing him to be an eternal outsider once more. It was a familiar twinge of unworthiness. Without considering, he reached for Cabeswater in the center of his being, to give the emotion away. To his surprise, a single twist of vine, leaves new and tender, twined through his thoughts. Adam smiled to himself. He knew where Ronan was.  
  
After rinsing off the sweat and motor oil, Adam came downstairs and forced himself to let go of his restlessness. Adam had a full scholarship waiting for him at Princeton University, no rent to pay, and a little less discomfort in allowing someone to help him with a thing or two. Instead of killing himself with work this summer, he had opted to restrict work to the trailer factory and Boyd’s, leaving the rest of the season all his own. There were psychic lessons with Maura – he wanted to gain greater fluency with the tarot deck –but those were as informal and irregular as everything at 300 Fox Way. He was, at this very moment, staring down a luxurious swathe of free time. No homework, no job, no planning, no obligations, nothing. Just free, free time. Adam settled on the couch with a bag of microwave popcorn and turned on the TV. It felt wildly self-indulgent.  
He watched a poorly plotted action movie as he let himself sink deeply into the sofa. He was most of the way to a nap when he heard the front door burst open to admit Ronan and his familiars. The scent of summer forest followed them in and Adam once again felt the small, budding presence of Cabeswater. He connected with the ley line in the center of his being, pictured the vine, and willed it to grow. There was a faint, answering surge in his blood.  
  
Opal clattered in on her little hooves. She made a delighted little bird noise when she saw him, trotted over to nuzzle his outstretched hand, then galloped out the back door. She was a feral little thing. Sometimes, when the weather was bad or she was hungry, she was willing to spend time in the house, but she preferred a small dwelling on the edge of the woods Ronan and Adam had helped her to build. It looked more like a giant beaver lodge than a house, per her preference, but the inside was well-fortified with dreamt luxuries to keep her safe and comfortable.  
  
While Ronan made an excessively noisy business of de-booting and hand washing, Chainsaw flapped over near Adam’s head, eyeing him imperiously. She let out a surprisingly soft, fond noise for a raven. He gently stroked the top of her head twice, in the manner of a courtier bowing before a queen. She made a satisfied motion before winging her way to her perch near the large window.  
  
“Did you quit your day job?” Ronan asked hopefully, striding into the room.  
  
“Finished up early. What have you been up to?” he asked casually.  
  
Ronan threw himself violently onto the couch beside Adam. Even at rest, he was more alive than any creature should have a right to be.  
  
“Dreaming,” he replied enigmatically.  
  
“Dreaming what?”  
  
Ronan’s blue eyes glinted merrily. Satisfaction colored with an air of smugness hung about him. “You’ll see soon enough. It’s a surprise.”  
Adam let himself gaze at Ronan, enjoying everything about him, for a moment longer. Ronan jerked his chin in the direction of the TV, where a car was exploding. “What’s this shit?”  
  
Adam shrugged and turned back to the screen. The thread of the movie had gone completely out of his head the moment Ronan came in.  
“They always cut out the best parts on TV,” Ronan grumbled.  
  
“You mean the swearing and the sex?”  
  
“Exactly. What’s the fucking point without swearing and sex?”  
  
“I’d say plot, but this doesn’t seem to have one.”  
  
“Precisely, Parrish.”  
  
Adam reached into the popcorn bag for another handful. Ronan deftly ducked his head under Adam’s arm and opened his mouth, looking up at Adam expectantly. He looked so charmingly like Chainsaw Adam was a little disarmed. Adam fed him the popcorn. Ronan made a point of grazing Adam’s fingertips with his teeth. A little shiver of anticipation traveled down Adam’s nerve endings.  
  
Swiftly, Ronan snatched the popcorn bag from Adam’s hand. Adam shoved him half-heartedly with his empty palm, but didn’t remove the other arm from around Ronan’s shoulder. “I was eating that, you pain in the ass.”  
  
Ronan stole another couple handfuls, then handed it back with an exaggerated gesture. Adam took it warily, but Ronan’s attention remained fixed on the television. Just as Adam began to relax, Ronan smacked his palm under the bag, showering them both. Now Adam shoved him with both hands.  
  
“Dick! Now I’m covered in it.”  
  
Ronan was chortling. “Your face . . .” he gasped.  
  
Adam stood up, brushed the kernels off himself and his couch space, and huffed back down, all while glaring at Ronan. Chainsaw hopped around the floor, tossing kernels up in the air to charge at them.  
  
“Oh, quit your bitching and watch your bullshit movie,” Ronan remanded, still mirthful.  
  
Adam merely shook his head, pulling Ronan back under his arm to recline against his chest. Ronan sighed with contentment. The television made meaningless noises as Adam breathed deeply of the wild woods scent he associated with Ronan. There was something of moss and mist and foxtail grass – the nearly intangible aura of making, living, growing.  
Ronan turned his head. Adam felt a humid touch of breath against his chest. Ronan shifted again, this time pressing a light kiss to Adam’s collarbone. Adam closed his eyes to get lost in the sensation of his skin kindling. Ronan’s arm slid over Adam’s stomach. A bit of skin just under Adam’s jawline was pinched between teeth. A tongue touched the place just bitten. Another, more substantial shift before a huff of breath heralded a more lingering kiss just below Adam’s right ear.  
  
Adam caved, capturing Ronan’s generous mouth with his own. Lips and necks and shoulders were kissed and licked and bitten. Shirts and throw pillows joined popcorn kernels on the floor. Adam took Ronan’s earlobe firmly between his teeth.  
  
“Shit Parrish!” Ronan hissed.  
  
“Too hard?” Adam whispered.  
  
“Only if you’re talking about my dick,” Ronan replied, returning a firm bite on Adam’s shoulder.  
  
“You were right,” Adam gasped, “This is better with swearing and sex.”  
  
Ronan grinned ferociously, then took one of Adam’s fingers into his mouth, drawing it out slowly. Adam clenched his teeth, watching Ronan nibble his way down Adam’s torso. Adam’s fingers had moved to unzip his pants when Ronan’s head jerked up, cocked a little sideways exactly like Chainsaw.  
  
“What?” Adam exclaimed, but he heard it too. Car door shutting. Voices trading back and forth. Shoes on gravel. Ronan pressed his forehead into Adam’s stomach, muttering a rising stream of invective terminating in a loud “Jesus Mary FUCK!”  
  
They both jumped off the couch and scrambled for clothing. “Guests!” snarled Ronan, practically running for the back door.  
  
Adam was still a little dazed, very unhappy to be interrupted, and trying to remember how to dress himself. “Where are you-“ he sputtered.  
  
“I need a minute! Fuck!” Ronan barked, slamming outside.  
  
Selfish bastard, Adam thought, I need a minute too.  
  
Adam ignored the knocking at the front door to reach desperately for that hint of Cabeswater, a whiff of cool morning dew to give him the strength not to slam the door in their faces, find Ronan, and pin him down in a hayloft somewhere. So Gansey and Blue, tired of knocking, found Adam standing in the middle of the living room, eyes closed, breathing deeply. There was a mess of popcorn and couch cushions all over the floor, TV blaring unnoticed, a barefoot Adam apparently in meditation, and the sound of the back door still creaking on its hinges.  
  
Blue immediately adopted a cunning grin.  
  
“Hey, Adam. Didn’t you hear us knocking?”  
  
Adam opened his eyes to look at her, but did not rush to answer.  
  
“Where’s Ronan?” she asked.  
  
“Um,” Adam was still working on regaining the power of speech, “Outside, I think.”  
  
“Weird,” remarked Blue. I thought I just heard him.”  
  
“TV,” Adam replied, gesturing.  
  
“I didn’t think you could say ‘Jesus Mary fuck’ on TV.”  
  
Adam glowered at her.  
  
Gansey looked utterly bewildered. “Are you in the middle of . . . something . . .” he asked, clearly gaining understanding and finding it horribly awkward by the time he got to “something.”  
  
“Not anymore,” Adam bit back, a little more crankily than intended.  
  
Gansey flushed and Blue cackled. Too loudly, Gansey exclaimed, “Ronan’s outside? Let’s seek him out, Jane!” Glancing at Adam he added, “Leisurely.”  
  
Adam blew out a long breath before putting on shoes and patting down his rumpled hair. Blue was waiting for him just outside the door. Adam rolled his eyes. Barely checking her grin, she linked her arm with his. He gave her a light hip check that caused a small but satisfying stumble.  
  
“Sorry,” she said. “I told Gansey we should call, but he just said Ronan never picks up."  
  
Adam grunted. This was irrefutable.  
  
“Pretty obvious, huh?” he remarked.  
  
Blue raised her eyebrows. “Dude, your shirt’s on inside out.”  
  
Adam flushed to the tips of his ears and hastily remedied the situation.  
  
He did not miss Blue’s appreciative appraisal as he did so. Adam notched a brow.  
  
“You had your chance. Gansey not impressing you?”  
  
She just grinned. “Oh, Gansey’s plenty impressive. But just because I’m with Gansey doesn’t mean I’ve gone blind.”  
  
Adam tilted his head amiably, acknowledging the point.  
  
“Just don’t let Ronan catch you ogling me. He’s the jealous type.”  
  
Blue scoffed. “Pshaw! I could take him.”  
  
The image this conjured was so ridiculous Adam laughed out loud. Blue linked her arm back up with his.  
  
Gansey was visible up ahead, puzzling over something Opal was showing him. Ronan was also visible, exiting a barn, clearly pretending to be busy.  
  
“He’s actually pretty hot, once you get past the asshole part,” Blue remarked conversationally.  
  
Adam cast a dubious glance at her.  
  
“And we all know he’s very creative.”  
  
Adam frowned.  
  
“I’ll admit, I’m a little curious.”  
  
Adam’s ears began to pinken again. “I am definitely not talking about this with you.”  
  
She reached up to flick the blushing tip of his ear. He swatted at her.  
  
“C’mon. Does he bite? Like in a good way? Those teeth marks say he does!” she finished giggling, poking the spot where his neck and shoulder met. Adam shoved her aside and scrubbed at the spot as though it could be wiped off.  
  
“Maybe I should just ask Ronan for details.”  
  
“I think you should,” Adam agreed, “Right away. And make sure to tell him you think I look sexy without a shirt. You’ll deserve what you get.” Actually, Ronan would probably approve of all of these things and be magnanimously oversharing rather than appropriately cantankerous.  
  
Blue was still spilling over with mirth as she bounced past Gansey and grabbed Opal’s hand, whispering something to her.  
  
“Were you shirtless?” Gansey asked, looking behind him as though some appropriate reason for such a display might present itself.  
  
Adam sighed. “She informed me my shirt was on inside out.”  
  
“I’ll call next time,” Gansey said, nodding.  
  
“Probably a good plan.”  
  
The stood companionably silent, watching Opal distract Ronan long enough for Blue to ingeniously trip him, sending him down face first.  
  
“You little shit!” Ronan yelled, springing after her.  
  
The shouted like children and leapt like deer through the deepening twilight. Ronan’s delicate fairy lights danced above the grass.  
  
“What did you tell her to ask Ronan?”  
  
“About our sex life.”  
  
Gansey paled. “Oh no. He’ll probably tell her. And then she’ll tell me. And I do not want to know.”  
  
Ronan finally felled Blue in the springy turf with a triumphant “Ha! Take that, maggot!”  
  
He immediately offered her a hand and drew her back to her feet. They headed back to Gansey and Adam puffing with exuberance.  
  
“We’d better not leave them alone together until she forgets about it.”  
  
Gansey nodded, then extended his fist. They bumped knuckles.


	11. 1 year - Ronan visits Adam

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> To his surprise, Adam answered his quiet knock immediately. He was bleary-eyed and scruffy and a supernova went off in Ronan’s heart. He was a little worried Adam would feel the heat and light radiating off him. Adam smiled wryly and let him in.  
> “What are you still doing up?” Ronan asked, shifting restlessly as he took in the computer, papers, and the Knight of Wands – his card – sitting out on the counter. He was actively disinterested in tarot, but was secretly delighted that Adam had identified a special card just for him.  
> “Did you get pulled over or something?” Adam asked with a smirk. “I clocked you at 5:15.”  
> “4:47” Ronan barked before he could stop himself. “I didn’t leave the second I hung up.”  
> Adam’s smirk shifted to a full smile, the one he reserved almost exclusively for Ronan and that Ronan was completely slayed by every time. Ronan could feel all the posturing melting off him. He watched Adam hungrily as he shut down his computer and put his academia away. Adam yawned and stretched.  
> “Well, come here, you hedonistic idiot. I missed you.”  
> Ronan was in his arms in two strides.

Ronan Lynch strode out of the woods, kicking any inanimate object en route tall enough to be punished and low enough not to slow him down.  Opal followed somewhat skittishly.  Chainsaw kept a wary distance in between trees rather than perching on his shoulder.  Each kick was punctuated by a curse word, but even these were brief and lacking in their usual creativity.

The bright sun and punishing heat fouled his mood even more.  Why couldn’t the day be grim, cloudy, and miserable?  This summer he had begun his slow, loving reimagining of Cabeswater.  He’d started small; a fairy ring of mushrooms, a slumbering ancient oak, and tangle of vines, an ugly, wickedly thorny wall of brush with a hidden entrance only currently known to the Greywaren.  Throughout the remains of the summer and into the early fall, he’d been expanding nearly every day, sometimes at night.  A hidden glade here, a chattering stream there, a flock of jewel-bright hummingbirds and the somewhat impossible flowers to feed them. 

Adam had felt Cabeswater’s reawakening immediately.  Ronan wasn’t ready to show Gansey or Blue yet, but Adam had the sense of it already.  The day before Adam had left for Princeton, Ronan had shown him the meager wonders.  Quietly, Adam had touched the undersides of the leaves and breathed in the scents and settled those rudiments deep inside his soul, refilling the place Cabeswater had emptied when it sacrificed.  Ronan had been rewarded with Adam’s true smile and a nod.  “It feels right.  Will you show me more when I come back?”  A little fizz of panic in Ronan’s heart had eased a bit.  “Yeah.”

Lonely but inspired during his first three Adam-free weeks, Ronan had dreamed lush, magnificent details to feed the line and Cabeswater.  However after Gansey and Blue had also left, and not even any Noah to spend time with, the colors bled out of Ronan’s dreaming.  He stayed away from Cabeswater as his dreams became dusty and mundane.  He began to empathize with Niall’s desire to dream up Aurora to make his existence bearable.  Despite his hatred of phones, he had been reduced to anxiously babysitting one for a text or call from any of his friends, immediately picking up or responding. 

Today, roughly six weeks after Adam’s departure, Ronan had gone to stroll through Cabeswater for inspiration, to try to dream.  He’d lain awake, sweating in the soft turf of a small glade, unable to even enter his dream space.

Snapping at Opal and Chainsaw to hurry up, he drove at blistering speed back to the Barns, where he could mope without the slightest chance of being interrupted.

***

Adam had plunged himself deep into the rigors of his curriculum.  He’d pushed so hard for this.  Before the events of last spring, this Ivy League education had been about grabbing power and control – being a prince of his own self-made kingdom.  What he hadn’t expected was the alchemy love and acceptance would work on him.  He hadn’t expected to find a true home.  It made him realize his high school fantasies of richly appointed living spaces were nothing but empty rooms full of lifeless things.  His daydreams were now populated by the rooms and pastures of the Barns, the ebb and flow of the ley line in his blood, and Ronan, Ronan, Ronan.  Cabeswater was too fragile and far away for him to reach much for it here, though meditation and tarot still afforded him flashes of vision.

Adam had friendly acquaintances at school, but they were nothing like his real friends.  His self-containment, his _otherness_ attracted people to him and intimidated the spineless, making him doubly intriguing to the privileged denizens of Princeton.  He mingled in a mostly convincing way, but this was primarily in the interest of networking.  It did little to relieve the lonesome heaviness and was maddeningly difficult without Gansey there to make it seem effortless.

Knowing Ronan’s hatred of phones, Adam tried not to call too often or desperately, but the longing for home was getting too intense to bear.  There were only so many amusing text messages he could invent without Ronan’s obnoxious presence to inspire creativity.  He needed to go back, to go _home_ , and reset himself. 

Ronan was slouched despondently on the couch, crumpling little pieces of paper and throwing them to Chainsaw to play with.  Opal, bored by his moodiness, had retreated to her outdoor habitat.  The ringtone, Adam’s ringtone, got him sitting straight up like a dog hearing a whistle.  He forced himself to let it ring a couple times before picking it up and answering in his most irritated tone, “Yeah?”

“What are you doing?” Adam asked casually.

“Surveying my kingdom.”  Ronan replied sarcastically, though what he meant was _wishing you would come home._ “What about you?”

“Studying.  Same thing I’m always doing.”

“Sounds boring as fuck.” Ronan sniped.

“Pretty much.  How’s the project coming?”

Ronan shifted uncomfortably.  He made a noncommittal noise.  He knew Adam was still connected to Cabeswater, but wasn’t sure if Adam could feel the lack of progress from so far away.  “I’m having dreamer’s block.”

“Maybe I could help.”  Adam said cautiously.

Ronan’s attention was intense.  Chainsaw jerked her head up from the litter to watch the phone.

“I could come home for the weekend.  I still have to write a paper, but . . .”

“You could write it here.”  Ronan, jumped in, too quickly, dammit.

“I could,” Adam agreed.  “I need to be back for class on Monday, though.”

“So you’re coming home?” Ronan cursed the eagerness he heard leaching into the receiver.  This was exactly why he hated phones.  No way to temper his desire.

He could hear Adam’s smile.  “Yeah.  Class ends at 2:00 tomorrow.  I’ll leave right after.”

“Okay, I’ll see you tomorrow night.” Ronan responded lamely.

“Buy some decent food for the weekend.  I don’t want to get stuck eating nothing but chips and Hot Pockets for two days.”

Ronan made a dismissive noise and hung up the phone.

He began pacing furiously.  There was no way he would be able to sleep tonight.  Nearly 24 hours of waiting.  It seemed like an interminable stretch of time.  The BMW keys pulsed in his vision like a beacon.  It was 9:30pm.  If he left now, and drove fast (of course he would drive fast – he always drove fast) he could be there by 3:00am.  Adam’s shitbox probably wouldn’t make it all the way back home anyway.  He _needed_ Ronan to pick him up.

“Fuck it.”

Ronan fixed up Opal and Chainsaw for the night and the next day, locked up the house, and hit the road with the wind chasing him hard.

***

Adam felt a lighter than he had in weeks.  Something nagged at him though, a tug on his psychic sense.  He went to his tarot deck, cleared his mind, and drew a card.  The Knight of Wands charged into the darkness - charging toward him.  Adam opened his laptop and brought out his notes.  He may as well get going on that paper.  He’d have company in a few hours.

***

Ronan’s BMW ate up the night roads between Virginia and New Jersey in a blur of loud electronica and quick flashes of headlights.  Any time he encountered traffic, he blew by in a frightening gale.  With each mile, he felt more electric and alive.  Color was seeping back into the frames of his mind.  Inspiration for his dream space began to blossom.

In the parking lot of Adam’s moderately shitty apartment complex, Ronan hesitated.  Was this too desperate?  Would Adam be weirded out?  Ronan was infinitely grateful Adam had permitted him to pay the rent on off-campus housing.  It had been a bit of a battle, but it really was cheaper than the dorms and Adam was willing to admit that greater focus on study would get him to his goal more effectively than killing himself like he did for Aglionby.  Ronan suspected Adam allowed Ronan to manipulate him because he was well aware of the selfish motives underlying Ronan’s points.  The selfish part was enough to override the resistance to accepting help freely offered.  Thank God he didn’t need to breach campus security.  Ronan briefly contemplated waiting in the car until daybreak, but reasoned that wouldn’t look any less desperate.  Visions of a cold, annoyed Adam plagued him.

To his surprise, Adam answered his quiet knock immediately.  He was bleary-eyed and scruffy and a supernova went off in Ronan’s heart.  He was a little worried Adam would feel the heat and light radiating off him.  Adam smiled wryly and let him in.

“What are you still doing up?” Ronan asked, shifting restlessly as he took in the computer, papers, and the Knight of Wands – his card – sitting out on the counter.  He was actively disinterested in tarot, but was secretly delighted that Adam had identified a special card just for him.

“Did you get pulled over or something?” Adam asked with a smirk.  “I clocked you at 5:15.”

“4:47” Ronan barked before he could stop himself.  “I didn’t leave the _second_ I hung up.”

Adam’s smirk shifted to a full smile, the one he reserved almost exclusively for Ronan and that Ronan was completely slayed by every time.  Ronan could feel all the posturing melting off him.  He watched Adam hungrily as he shut down his computer and put his academia away.  Adam yawned and stretched.

“Well, come here, you hedonistic idiot.  I missed you.”

Ronan was in his arms in two strides.

****

Adam slowly regained consciousness as his alarm blared cruelly in the early morning light.  Ronan, draped artfully across his chest, did not stir.  The alarm was silenced, and Adam debated skipping class altogether for far longer than he should have.  Alas, scholarships at Princeton required both diligence and excellence to be maintained.  He edged out from under Ronan’s limp form, deeply regretting the necessity.

Adam poked his head back into the bedroom just before he left to find Ronan’s bright blue eyes slitted open, though he still looked soft and relaxed.

“I’ll be back after class and we can head out.  There’s food in the fridge.”

“Just stay.”

Adam shook his head ruefully.  “I have to go.  But I’ll be with you all weekend.”

“Fine,” Ronan sighed, rolling over and going back to sleep.  “You can see what you’re missing.”  He added with a mouthful of pillow.  The hooks of Ronan’s tattoo over his shoulders tempted Adam powerfully.  He sighed regretfully and slumped out the door.

He was barely able to pay attention in his classes.  He had every intention of bolting the second class was dismissed, but his friend Cheryl started dissecting the lecture with him as they were packing up and Adam allowed himself to get caught up in the argument as they walked out of the lecture hall.  Both eager students and relentless logicians, they had struck up an early friendship, carrying the class topics out into the walking paths and coffee shops of campus, and even occasionally into town with others.  Lately, however, Cheryl’s mannerisms had changed ever so subtly to those of _interest_.  She was attractive enough, he supposed, and smart.  In other circumstances, he may have even entertained dating her.  However, the Ronan factor pretty effectively obliterated all other humans from the category of _interest_.

Adam allowed the discussion to die sooner than was his habit, given that his sleep-deprived brain had recently been utterly shorted out by the amorous attentions of his boyfriend, and he had a full weekend of similar distractions to look forward to.  Adam began to pick up his stride, and Cheryl fumbled with her backpack straps before tugging on his arm to pull him to a stop.

“So, I was wondering if you wanted to go out for a drink with me later.”

There was a warning light blinking somewhere in the back of Adam’s mind, but the enormous Ronan sign at the front obscured it.

“I would but I can’t.  I’m headed home for the weekend.”  He started to turn back toward the parking lot again.

“Oh, of course.  So how about next week?  Dinner?  Just, you know, us?”

Dumbfounded, Adam focused his attention on her.  “Are you asking me out on a date?”

She colored, but didn’t back down.  “Yes.  Why not?”

Adam looked slightly pained, “I have a boyfriend.”

Her eyebrows did all sorts of acrobatics and Adam had to check a grin.  “Oh.  Oh!  Oh,” she stammered, clearly moving through disappointment, shock, and _don’t say something assy_.  “I didn’t realize you were . . .um . . .gay.”  The volume of this sentence declined as it went along until “gay” was not much above a whisper.  Now she was looking blatantly embarrassed and Adam was feeling guilty.

He started moving again and she kept in step.  “I’m not sure I would define myself that way,” dangerous spark of hope in the glance she flicked at him, “but I would say I’m Ronan’s.”

“Is that his name?  What’s he like?”

Her tenacity was surprising.  And annoying.  As Adam tried to come up with a response that might encapsulate the enigma, they rounded a curve in the walkway exposing the parking lot.  Right in the front, parked across not one but two handicapped spaces, was a shark-nosed black BMW with a savagely handsome, extremely tough-looking Ronan leaning indolently against it, glaring at all the students aghast at his blatant parking violation.  Adam smiled like the sun had just come out.  “He’s like that, I guess.”

Cheryl bit off the outburst she was about to spew regarding the handicapped spaces and visibly wilted.  Ronan was able to be intimidating at a minimum of 500 feet.  “ _That’s_ your boyfriend?” she squeaked.  “Wow.  He’s . . .wow.  Can I meet him?”

Adam’s amusement was spilling out all over his face.  She was starting to realize that the Adam she knew was a façade constructed for his university career.  There was someone much more _intense_ under there.  “You can, but he’ll probably be kind of a dick.  He’s not into small talk.”

Cheryl frowned a bit at that.  She wanted to ask why perfectly polite Adam’s boyfriend would be a dick to her, but Adam was already moving magnetically into Ronan’s orbit to kiss him in a very demonstrative, unselfconscious fashion.  Cheryl walked up just in time to hear Adam exclaim delightedly, “How did you know where my class was?  Your parking job is pissing off everyone within a mile.  Campus police are probably on the way.”

Ronan merely scoffed at the mention of campus police.  “Your shitbox is the ugliest thing on this entire campus.”  He gestured with his chin to Adam’s lawfully parked Hondayota a few rows away.  “I couldn’t miss it if I wanted to.  That fucking thing belongs in the junkyard.  When are you going to let me get you a decent fucking car?”

Adam shrugged, but they both knew the answer was _never_.  Ronan’s gaze moved over Cheryl, standing awkwardly to the side.  Adam caught the direction and grinned again.

“Ronan, this is my friend, Cheryl.  She wanted to meet you.”

Cheryl put on a brave little smile and held out her hand.  “Hi!”  Ronan did not take it.  Adam elbowed him in the ribs. 

“Ronan, don’t be a shitbag,” Adam remanded, though Cheryl had never heard the word _shitbag_ spoken with fondness before.

Ronan shook her hand as if he was touching something slimy and said “Hi,” as nastily as it was possible for a two letter word to be uttered.  His hostile glare did not waver.  Adam just rolled his eyes.  Cheryl utterly deflated under the Ronan Lynch gaze.  There was no competing with this creature.  He was another species entirely.  Adam found himself lowering her a few notches in his estimation.  Blue hadn’t allowed Ronan to shut her down for even one second.  He was struck with the uncomfortable realization that he had a type – people with impossible temperaments.

“You could have waited for me at the apartment.  I need to drop off my car and pack a couple things.”

“Can’t you just leave that thing here?

“Nope.  They’ll tow it if I leave it all weekend.”

“Downside?”

“So, see you around Adam.  Have a good weekend at home,” Cheryl uttered lamely before slouching off, defeated.

“See you,” Adam replied, barely glancing at her.

“So anyway, I’ll meet you back at the apartment,” Adam went on.

Ronan watched the girl walk away.  “She has a thing for you,” he said gruffly.

Adam grinned broadly.  “Nah, I think you just killed it.”

Ronan nodded with grim satisfaction.

“We probably need to stop at your place anyway.  There’s something we need to do before we get on the road,” he said, eyeing Adam hungrily.

Adam felt a little giddy.  “I think you’re right.”

On the way home at last, Adam reclined the passenger seat of the BMW and closed his eyes.  The ley line surged in his blood and the Barns sang in his heart.

“Are you seriously going to sleep already?”  Ronan asked.  “I can’t believe you expect me to drive for 5 fucking hours while you sleep.”

The car was warm and smelled of Ronan, and a little bit like Chainsaw in the back.  Ronan’s terrible music was like a white noise machine.  The 45 minutes in Adam’s apartment before they left had put Adam in a very good mood.

“I’m feeling very relaxed and satisfied right now.  I also got up and went to class while you stayed in bed half the day.”

Ronan snorted.  “I didn’t make you go to class.  You could have been relaxed and satisfied hours ago.”

“You drove for five fucking hours in the middle of the night last night all alone.  Didn’t bother you then.  I probably won’t sleep the whole time.”

“It was 4 hours and 47 minutes.”

Adam didn’t respond, but did rest his hand on Ronan’s thigh as he drifted off.

Ronan, by contrast, was nearly sparking with electricity.  He was itching to break his time record back to the Barns, but daylight hours were dangerous times for the kind of speed such a challenge required.

 


	12. 1 year - at the Barns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Being in love with Ronan was like being in love with a hurricane – an ever-shifting unstoppable force hiding a calm oasis at its heart. You needed to survive a hell of a lot of storm to get into the eye, and the location of that glorious haven was in perpetual motion, forever nudging you back out into the wildest winds. Of course, once a hurricane loves you back, the idea of living with nothing but milder weather barely seems like living at all.

Adam awoke late Saturday morning from a cool, green forest of dreams to the living quiet of the Barns.  Something he had not known was knotted inside him loosened the minute he’d stepped out of the car last night.  There was a faint rustling of footsteps and voices far downstairs, probably Ronan and Opal.  Ronan’s bed held his comforting wildlands scent.  Something of damp earth and fragrant brush.  Adam let go of his thoughts and reached for Cabeswater.  It was smaller and quieter than it had been before the sacrifice, but there were leaves rustling and flowers blooming and dark green hollows under growing trees.  Ronan had been working.  Adam drifted deeper into the ley line beneath the forest.  There were some disruptions he could heal while he was here, to aid the dreaming and feed the heart of the place.  He was still drifting along the energy current, eyes mostly closed, focused on the play of dust motes in the beam of sunlight across his chest when Ronan fell on top of him, elbows planted on either side of Adam’s ribcage, chin resting on Adam’s sternum, bright blue eyes full of mirth.

“You gonna sleep all day, lazy ass?”

Adam laced his fingers behind his head.

“Maybe.  I feel like I’m on vacation.  It’s so quiet here.”

Adam glanced down at the fully dressed figure pinning him in place.  “What are you doing up?”

“You told me I had to feed you, right?”

Adam nodded.

“I was out getting food, princess.  You can get your royal ass out of bed.”

Adam’s stomach growled obligingly.  “Then get off so I can get downstairs and properly appreciate your labors,” Adam said, ineffectually twisting and using his knees in an attempt to dislodge Ronan.

Ronan grinned wickedly.  “But I’ve got a sausage for you right here.”

“Ugh,” Adam groaned shoving at Ronan in earnest.  “You’re revolting.  Didn’t you get enough last night?”

Quick as a blink, all the mischief fell out of Ronan’s expression, leaving his face both open and fragile.

“Never,” he whispered, far too serious in no time at all.

Adam’s heart skittered in an irregular rhythm.  He brought his hands to either side of Ronan’s face slowly and delicately, like someone handling an injured bird.  “I’ll come back, Ronan.  I’m gonna keep coming back.”  The Henrietta accent colored his statement with truth.

Ronan dropped his gaze and Adam could feel his muscles tensing, ready to flee from this moment, come too soon and too heavy.  “Ronan,” Adam said, not sharply, but like he meant it.  Ronan’s eyes flicked back to his.  Adam held his face a little more firmly.  “You’re all the home I’ve ever had.  I won’t throw it away.”

There was a moment of intense silence before Ronan drew in a breath that was a little unsteady.  He pushed himself up the bed above Adam until his face was directly over Adam’s.  Ronan leaned his forehead against Adam’s, that and nothing else.  The quiet and their mingled breath made the action more intimate than sex.  “I love you,” Ronan said, barely audible.

Adam knew this – Ronan showed it to him a thousand different ways. But this was the first time he’d ever verbalized it.  A tidal wave surged up inside Adam, but he merely ran his hands up over Ronan’s shoulder blades and replied, low and intense, “And I love you.”  The pressure of Ronan’s head against his briefly intensified, then Ronan leapt up and headed for the door.

“Get your ass in gear, Sleeping Beauty.  Opal’s probably already taken a bite out of everything.”

While Ronan did not look back as he left, Adam could feel the undiminished heat of his attention.

Adam let out a shaky breath before getting up and dressed.  Being in love with Ronan was like being in love with a hurricane – an ever-shifting unstoppable force hiding a calm oasis at its heart.  You needed to survive a hell of a lot of storm to get into the eye, and the location of that glorious haven was in perpetual motion, forever nudging you back out into the wildest winds.  Of course, once a hurricane loves you back, the idea of living with nothing but milder weather barely seems like living at all.

Ronan had planned to take Adam to Cabeswater directly after breakfast.  Adam had planned to spend a fair portion of the day working with the ley line.  Opal thwarted them both.

In the kitchen, Adam found himself tripping over her every two minutes.  Every time, she turned an accusing gaze at him.  This tactic was highly effective in sparking Ronan to a fit of temper, but Adam was just amused.  Adam careened into Ronan trying to clear dishes from the table causing Ronan to finally snap “Out of the way, brat!  Go somewhere else!”

She hissed at him, but skulked into the hallway, turning her enormous eyes to Adam as she departed.  He followed her out into the hallway, kneeling down to whisper to her.  “What’s up, Opal?”

“Where did you go to?”

“School.”

“Are you going again?”  She managed to look both martyred and mutinous, something she had clearly learned from Ronan.

“I am, but I’ll come back again soon.”

She placed her little hand in his and tugged at him.  “Let’s go outside.”

He flicked a glance at Ronan in the kitchen, putting groceries away, preparing to wash the dishes.  “I should help-“

Her mouth formed a petulant pout.  “He’ll follow.  Come _now_.”

Adam could no more resist her than he could Ronan.  Cunningly, she lured him into a complex combined game of tag and hide-and-seek which eventually enveloped Ronan and Chainsaw as well.  The game drew Adam all over the Barns, randomly and in detail, allowing the homely magic of the place to seep into his being.  Sometimes Opal and Chainsaw chased one another.  Sometimes Adam found himself clambering under bushes and sneaking around corners.  Sometimes he and Ronan found each other instead of Opal and became too distracted to remember her until the shrieked call of “Kerah!” interrupted them.  Adam felt like the child he was never allowed to be.  Even Ronan shed his impatience in the heat of competition with Adam to be the most successful seeker.  This sensation of being fully awake, alive, and free had ebbed in the rarified confines of university.  Pleasantly tired and hungry in the early afternoon, Opal rode on Adam’s back all the way from the far field to the farmhouse.  Allowing Ronan to stride ahead, Adam whispered to his little burden, “Thank you.  That was just what I needed.”  She nuzzled his shoulder.  Opal elected to remain at the Barns rather than travel to Cabeswater with them that afternoon.

“Six weeks was too long,” Adam blurted in the car.

Ronan glanced at him sharply.

Adam leaned into the seat.  “To stay away.  I need to come home more.”

Ronan found this line of conversation deeply satisfying, though his only contribution was a grunt of agreement and a certain smugness about the mouth. 

“Maybe two or three weeks would be better.  I could take the train, I guess.  Try to avoid Friday or Monday classes next semester.”

“Good.  Because I’m not your personal fucking taxi service.”

“I was going to drive myself down this weekend!”

Ronan made a derisive noise.  “Not in your shitbox.  I probably would have had to come get you.  Just saved myself the trouble.”

Adam shook his head with incredulity.  “So I’ll take the train.  If you can take the time from your busy schedule to pick me up at the station.”

Ronan sighed tiredly.  “Yes, Parrish, I can manage that.”

Adam suspected Ronan would show up at his apartment in the pre-dawn hours five times out of ten, but had the good sense not to say anything about it.  At this point in the weekend, he was feeling quite breathlessly adored – a state he cautiously craved.

Entering Cabeswater was a little like coming home and a little like entering another dimension.  It was a wild wood, but it was also more wondrously sentient than a wood ought to be.  The wind through the leaves whispered lovingly to him.  It was not the limitless, meandering world of the past.  Much of it was young and uncertain.  It hadn’t developed enough to hold its own impossible seasons or exist entirely out of time.  Much like the rest of Virginia, it was turning gold and red, preparing for winter, though perhaps a bit more spectacularly.  In his favorite space, a green clearing near a quiet rocky stream, graced by elegant golden tendrils of willow, Adam laid face down in the grass, pressing his cheek and hands into the earth.  He tugged a piece of the boundless happiness he’d gathered in the last day and pushed it toward the heart of the ley line pulsing beneath him.  He was rewarded with the sense of the line stretching out beyond Cabeswater.  He followed his own pulse of joy and felt it stumble and sputter in a couple places nearby.

“Are you done with your communing shit yet?”

Adam opened his eyes and sprang lightly to his feet.

“Yep.  Let’s go.  I have a little work to do.”

They exited into the ordinary Virginia autumn afternoon.  The colors were less saturated, the air a little more brisk.  Adam turned to find Ronan lagging behind.  He stopped, letting the silence spin out until Ronan was ready to break it.

“I didn’t think you’d still be tied to it.  Cabeswater.  When I brought it back.  I didn’t mean for that to happen.”

Adam furrowed his brow, “I don’t think I am.”

“Then why do the work?”

All his life, Adam had been dirt poor and hungry with it.  Anything he had he fought for tooth and nail, like a stray dog.  Anything he had was barely what he needed and often less.  There was never much of anything Adam could afford to give anyone – gifts, time, attention.  There was love and there was loyalty, which were not small, but they were common.  Cabeswater had given Gansey back to them.  In caring for the ley line, he was caring for Cabeswater.  It was a gesture free from obligation or pursuit of gain.  It was about gratitude, reciprocity.  The line and Cabeswater also gave Ronan his dreaming.  If Ronan was ever to solve the puzzle of giving life to the dream without the dreamer, he needed both.

“It’s something I can afford to give – that only I can give.  That I want to give.  To Cabeswater, and to you.”

Ronan frowned.  “You give me everything I want already.”  This was not a flirtatious compliment coming from Ronan.  It was a bald statement of fact.  “I don’t understand.”

Adam’s mouth quirked.  “Ronan, you have more money than you know what to do with.  And anything you can’t buy you can dream.”

Ronan opened his mouth to argue but Adam put up a hand.

“Your dreaming isn’t just something you do.  It’s who you are.  I want you to have all of it, as far as you want to take it.  When I take care of the line, I can give you more.  I want you to be unlimited.  I want to help you open the door.”

Ronan looked vulnerable.  He swallowed heavily, looking back toward Cabeswater instead of at Adam.  He cleared his throat, then chucked the keys at Adam.

“So, where the fuck are we going, magician?”


	13. 13 months - Adam's stupid phone number

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dubiously, Charles called it. Adam’s phone began to play a jaunty Irish reel. The song kept progressing rather than repeating a single phrase. Charles hung up.
> 
> “So . . . when I call you . . . its 1-234-567-8910? How in the hell did you get that number?”
> 
> A private smile flitted over Adam’s face. “My boyfriend gave me the phone.”
> 
> “Is he a hacker or something?” Mike asked.
> 
> “I thought you said he was a farmer,” Dierdre chimed in.
> 
> “Was he that guy with the BMW a couple weeks ago? Everyone thought he was some kind of gang member,” Charles added.
> 
> There was a definite gleam of amusement in Adam’s eye. “He is a farmer. And yes, he’s the guy with the BMW. He’s not a gang member.”

Adam’s project group met around a sunny bench outside of the classroom, discussing preliminary ideas and logistics. They began exchanging numbers for future coordination. 

“Adam, what’s yours?”

Adam allowed a little sigh to escape before he recited, “234-567-8910.”

They all looked up from their screens and stared at him. Charles was the first to start laughing.

“Okay, but seriously. What’s your number?”

Adam looked pained.

“That’s my number.”

“It can’t be,” Dierdre scoffed, distinctly annoyed.

Another sigh. Adam pulled out his phone. It was strangely small. His hand obscured the logo on the back, which was definitely not an apple. It was something with sharp edges.

“Call it.”

Dubiously, Charles called it. Adam’s phone began to play a jaunty Irish reel. The song kept progressing rather than repeating a single phrase. Charles hung up.

“So . . . when I call you . . . its 1-234-567-8910? How in the hell did you get that number?”

A private smile flitted over Adam’s face. “My boyfriend gave me the phone.”

“Is he a hacker or something?” Mike asked.

“I thought you said he was a farmer,” Dierdre chimed in.

“Was he that guy with the BMW a couple weeks ago? Everyone thought he was some kind of gang member,” Charles added.

There was a definite gleam of amusement in Adam’s eye. “He is a farmer. And yes, he’s the guy with the BMW. He’s not a gang member.”

“So how did he get that number? I didn’t think it even existed,” Dierdre asked.

“He’s creative, especially when he wants something. He also has a juvenile sense of humor,” Adam looked a little wistful.

“Can I see it?” Mike asked.

Adam shrugged and handed over the phone. The front was all screen. There were a few delicate buttons on the slender sides. The back was some kind of dark metallic finish, but it was difficult to discern the color, like a shadow. There was a silver logo, something like a bird’s wing.

“What brand is that, man?” Charles asked, peering over Mike’s shoulder. Adam shrugged again and gently tugged it from Mike’s grasp to slip back into his pocket.

“Like I said, my boyfriend got it for me.”

“Is it, like, Japanese or something?”

“It’s definitely from somewhere far away,” Adam replied, smirking.


	14. 15 months - Jealous

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He walked over to the bed, pushed aside something that may have been a sweatshirt or a dress, and put a comforting arm around Blue’s shoulder. Ronan visibly bristled. He strode over to the bed as well, shoving everything else off it onto the floor, and squeezed himself next to Adam. Blue and Adam both looked at him like he’d grown a second head.  
> “What?”  
> “Jesus, Ronan. Territorial much?” Blue remarked.  
> Ronan had the decency to look a little embarrassed, but he didn’t move. Adam gave him a less than gentle elbow to the ribs. Ronan stood his ground.

Ronan and Adam pulled up to 300 Fox Way at precisely 1:00pm on December 29th, as arranged. They would be transporting Blue from her comfortable holidays at home to the grandeur of the Gansey estate for New Year’s.  
  
They left Matthew and Declan at the Barns to watch over Opal. Ronan had rambled incoherently for nearly 30 minutes regarding her care, which Declan had interrupted every five to undermine and fluster Ronan. By the end, Ronan was beginning to go a little red in the face. “Never mind! I don’t know why I even asked!” Declan had unleashed his shit-eating grin and responded, “I was able to look after you when you were a kid. How much harder could it be?”  
  
Adam noted that Opal and Matthew were happily engaged in building an elaborate blanket fort. Before Ronan could go off again, Adam pulled out a small sheaf of typed pages and handed them to Declan. “Everything is in there. It’s cold, so she’ll probably prefer to sleep inside.” Declan merely gave Adam and approving nod.  
  
Ronan was looking totally bewildered as Adam artfully steered him out the door. “What the shit was that?”  
  
Adam gave him a baleful look. “I wanted to get going before nightfall.”  
  
“You just assumed I’d fuck that up. Had it all ready to go,” Ronan spat huffily on the way to the car.  
  
“I assumed you’d get in a fight with your brother and lose focus. Which you did,” Adam countered coolly.  
  
“I’m the one here taking care of her every day, you know. You’re not fucking omnipotent.”  
  
“Maybe I should have let you stay and fight with Declan so I wouldn’t have to fight with you instead.”  
  
Ronan wrenched the car door open, threw himself into the seat, and slammed it shut. Adam opened the passenger door deliberately, sat carefully, and closed the door quietly, which was equally demonstrative of high temper. Ronan pealed out as though the four horsemen of the apocalypse were chasing him, blasting the music so loud Adam could feel his teeth thrumming with the bass.  
  
Thus, Ronan was already firing at mostly pissed when they arrived at Fox Way. Though they were on time, Blue was not outside. He drummed his fingers irritably on the steering wheel for approximately two minutes, then executed a long, obnoxious honk. Ronan had not deigned to turn down the music within the residential neighborhood. Another two minutes. Ronan honked even more horribly than the first time. The neighbors were peeking out of their windows. Any moment, someone was going to call the police, which would be just perfect. Adam turned off the stereo, ignoring the laser heat coming from Ronan, and called Blue’s cell. She did not answer. He called the house phone. Orla answered.  
  
“She’s not ready. You might as well come in.”  
  
“Could you just ask her to come to the phone?”  
  
“Blue,” Orla roared, “One of your boys on the phone!”  
  
Faintly, Blue’s voice could be heard shouting, “I’m not going! Tell them to leave!”  
  
Orla sighed heavily. “She says she’s not going. You could always take me.”  
  
Adam hung up. It was possible Ronan was literally steaming.  
  
“Well?” Ronan snapped.  
  
Adam reached over, turned off the ignition, and pulled the keys. “We’re going in.”  
  
“Goddammit!”  
  
Ronan slammed the car door and stormed up the house with Adam following more sedately, but just as irritated. Adam was not enthusiastic about spending the next two hours in the car with Ronan in a shitty mood, especially not with Blue conspiring to make it worse. Calla whipped the door open before Ronan could pound on it, looking like she might literally bite his head off.  
  
“What is your problem, snake?”  
  
“Blue is my fucking problem! Where is she?”  
  
Calla looked over at Adam. “You going to watch him?”  
  
Adam nodded, Ronan growled and looked as though he might punch Calla, who reluctantly stepped aside enough to let him in.  
  
“Upstairs,” said Calla.  
  
Ronan stomped up the stairs. Adam heard the door of Blue’s room bang open, followed immediately by Blue’s shrieking, “Get out, Ronan! I’m not going. And what give you the right to just barge in-“  
  
Maura passed Adam in the hall, clearly escaping from Blue’s room. She raised her eyebrows at Adam. “All yours,” she muttered as she fled down the stairs, probably chasing a soothing cup of tea. Adam was surprised he had not yet heard an answering volley from Ronan. The view of Blue’s room explained it. Ronan had been derailed by the girl bomb that had clearly detonated before they arrived. It looked like Blue’s wardrobe had projectile vomited itself. A battered, old-fashioned suitcase sat open on the bed, articles of clothing hanging out of it as though attempting to escape. Dresses hung from the ceiling fan. There was no horizontal surface not covered by some kind of fabric. Ronan and Adam shared a wary, uncomfortable glance. This was foreign territory indeed. Ronan recovered first, pulling his pissy, aggressive demeanor over his awkwardness.  
  
“What’s your damage, maggot? We’re going to be late.”  
  
Blue looked absolutely furious, but also perilously close to tears. Adam was beginning to get an inkling of the trouble. Orla floated through the hallway, calling out cattily, “She says she has nothing to wear. Good thing her gay boys are here.”  
  
Blue went crimson. Ronan’s hands clenched into tight fists. Adam turned quickly to the door, telling Orla “If you weren’t a girl, Ronan would have already broken your giant nose,” before shutting it firmly in her face. Adam felt a rush of empathy for Blue. He knew exactly what was bothering her.  
  
“We’re not those kind of gay friends,” Ronan snarled through clenched teeth, giving Blue an accusatory glare.  
  
“I know,” she snapped. “I tried calling Henry but he’s out of the country. He didn’t answer. It’s probably the middle of the night or something.” She flopped down on her bed, bouncing a pair of crocheted tights onto the floor.  
  
“He has a thing for Gansey, doesn’t he?” Ronan asked, sounding inappropriately interested.  
  
“I think so,” she sighed, “but I also think he knows Gansey doesn’t swing that way.”  
  
“Does Gansey know?” Ronan asked. Adam was finding Ronan’s fascination highly annoying.  
  
Blue sighed again, toying with the fringed edge of a sweater. “I doubt it. He’s pretty oblivious.”  
  
Ronan nodded sagely. “Does it bother you?” Ronan continued. Blue was starting to look very irascible again and Adam was not sure whether Ronan was picking at the Henry or Gansey side of this, but either way, it made him want to hit someone.  
  
“Why are you so interested in this?” Adam snapped at Ronan, sharper than he intended. Ronan narrowed is eyes at Adam.  
  
Blue raised a knowing eyebrow, reminiscent of her mother. “Never mind,” Adam amended, positive he did not want to delve into this topic in front of Blue in this house, “we’re off topic.”  
  
Ronan’s mouth opened, but Adam shot him a frigid glare that unquestionably communicated, we’ll fight about it later. Ronan shut his mouth, crossed his arms, and went to lean against the wall, looking put upon.  
  
“It’s a casual family thing, not a fancy party. There’s no dress code. What the real problem?” Adam asked reasonably.  
  
Blue was looking at the floor, pushing a pair of leggings around with her foot. “I’ve never been in a mansion before. I mean, I’ve met his parents, but now I’m officially the girlfriend. What if they, you know, don’t approve?”  
  
Ronan made a dismissive sound and flapped his hand. “Who cares? It’s Gansey’s choice, not theirs. Declan doesn’t approve of Adam. Doesn’t bother me.”  
  
Adam rolled his eyes. “Declan doesn’t approve of you. Me, he likes.”  
  
He walked over to the bed, pushed aside something that may have been a sweatshirt or a dress, and put a comforting arm around Blue’s shoulder. Ronan visibly bristled. He strode over to the bed as well, shoving everything else off it onto the floor, and squeezed himself next to Adam. Blue and Adam both looked at him like he’d grown a second head.  
  
“What?”  
  
“Jesus, Ronan. Territorial much?” Blue remarked.  
  
Ronan had the decency to look a little embarrassed, but he didn’t move. Adam gave him a less than gentle elbow to the ribs. Ronan stood his ground.  
  
“Think about the other guests – Gansey’s gay best friends, dating each other. One lived with Gansey for three years. The other ruined a fairly important campaign event. They’ll be so thrilled he’s not dating me or Ronan, you’ll look good no matter what you do. They already like you.”  
  
“Speak for yourself,” Ronan added, “I’m a fucking catch.”  
  
Adam ignored him. “Stay near Ronan. He’ll make you look incredibly sophisticated by comparison.”  
  
“Hey!” Ronan said, clearly offended.  
  
“He is pretty terrible,” Blue agreed speculatively, looking a little cheerier.  
  
“I’m sitting right here,” Ronan griped.  
  
“Thanks for the pep talk, Parrish,” Blue said, patting his knee fondly.  
  
“Don’t get handsy, Sargent,” Ronan said dangerously.  
  
Adam stood, hauling Ronan up with him. “We’ll wait for you by the car.”  
  
“Hurry it up, maggot. All this girl shit is making us late. We’ll need to make up time.”  
  
“I’ll be sure to bring my helmet and five-point harness,” she replied dryly.  
  
They were both silent until they reached the car. Adam found the pit of his stomach still roiling. The tension in Ronan’s shoulders told him Ronan wasn’t done either.  
“What was with the twenty questions about Gansey and Henry?”  
  
“It was three questions, and what’s the big deal?” Ronan answered.  
  
“You seem very invested in the Gansey question. Waiting for someone to turn him so you can jump on that?” Adam asked coldly.  
  
“You were getting pretty cozy in there with Blue. Waiting for her to calendar to open up?” Ronan returned, smoldering.  
  
Adam stepped into Ronan’s space, pushing him up against the car, face inches away from Ronan’s. “I’m with you, stupid. I don’t want to be with anyone else.”  
  
Ronan’s hands gripped Adam’s hips, pulling him closer. “So I want you to myself, too.”  
  
“Fine.”  
  
“Good.”  
  
Adam kissed Ronan aggressively, braced against the BMW. It was a war of teeth and tongues, no clear victor in sight. Ronan’s cold hands were inside Adam’s coat and shirt. One of Adam’s hands clutched the back of Ronan’s head. The other was fisted in the front of his jacket. The broke apart at a loud, disgusted noise from Blue.  
  
“Why can’t you guys do your public making out like normal people? That is an obscene display. We’re going to be getting complaints from the neighbors.”  
  
Ronan and Adam both flushed in her regard, a little out of breath.  
  
Ronan recovered more quickly. “Be on time next time and we won’t have to entertain ourselves.”  
  
He opened the trunk for Blue to throw her suitcase inside.  
  
“Seriously, that was excessive,” she said, climbing into the back seat. “Please keep it behind locked doors at the Ganseys’. I do not want to walk in on the private version of that. Ever.”  
  
Ronan turned to grin wickedly at her, then turned on the stereo and hit the accelerator hard. Adam kept his face turned toward the front of the car, but his ears were festively red.  
  
The Ganseys were, as expected, the perfect hosts, charmed with Blue and Adam, gently tolerant of Ronan. After an expansive, exquisitely prepared feast, they settled themselves in the drawing room to catch up. Ronan contributed amusing anecdotes from the Barns, mostly about Opal. Adam chatted about his classes and snobby college acquaintances. Gansey and Blue nattered about the places they’d seen so far and where they planned to go next. Adam sat on the floor, leaning against Ronan’s legs. Ronan gently massaged his scalp with one hand. Between his full stomach, the comfortable warmth, and Ronan’s touch, Adam was drifting into a state of half sleep. Blue was relating the detail of some highly romantic gesture Gansey had performed – something about a hot air balloon. Ronan made a gagging noise.  
  
“Oh, shut up, Lynch. Just because you have no sense of romance-“  
  
“Ronan does romance,” Adam blurted sleepily. Ronan’s hand stopped moving on his scalp. The room went suddenly quiet. Adam opened his eyes all the way to find Blue and Gansey staring at him. He had not intended to say that out loud.  
  
“Fascinating,” said Gansey, a little smile playing around his mouth. “Do tell.”  
  
In the couple seconds before he answered, Adam’s mind flashed through the spontaneous visit to his college apartment, the elaborately lovely dream gifts tucked into places only he would find them, Ronan’s incredible tenderness in bed. It was understood wordlessly, between the two of them, all these treasures were private, more intimate and meaningful outside the view of others. To show these pieces would be to tarnish them.  
  
“He almost always answers the phone when I call him. Sometimes, he even calls me.”  
  
Blue rolled her eyes. “Wow. He’s really set the bar low.”  
  
Ronan’s hand relaxed and continued after a quick tug on Adam’s hair. Gansey didn’t say anything, but Adam didn’t think he was fooled. Blue finished relating her tale, which Adam continued not really listening to.  
  
Later, after Adam had stealthily crept into Ronan’s room and they lay nestled together, Ronan whispered into his right ear. “Weird moment in there. I wasn’t sure what you were going to say. I thought you might ruin my image.”  
  
Adam could hear that Ronan was trying to be flippant, but there was a nervous edge to it. “It’s none of their business. I was half asleep – talking in my head and it came out my mouth.”  
  
Ronan was quiet for a couple minutes, but Adam could tell he wasn’t finished.  
  
“So, you think I’m romantic?”  
  
Adam smiled, turning over to press the expression into Ronan’s shoulder in the dark.  
  
“Romance is your bitch. You knocked it out, woke it up, and gave it a new name.”  
  
Adam could feel him nodding. “Sounds like something I’d do.”  
  
“Now quit girling me and go to sleep. I want to get up in time for breakfast. The food in this house is amazing.”  
  
Ronan stiffened.  
  
“Girling?” he growled. Adam was feeling less sleepy by the second.  
  
“Girling,” he confirmed.  
  
Ronan flipped on top of him with alacrity. “You will regret that, Parrish.”  
  
“I hope so,” Adam replied, resigned to being tired at breakfast.


	15. 2 Years - the drive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The BMW changes hands
> 
> Out by the dreaded fairgrounds, something rolled up next to them at an interminable red light. It was a poison green Nissan GT-R, slammed to the pavement with a cartoonish spoiler at the back. The engine revved in challenge. Any other night, Adam would have let the other car pass by without a second thought. Tonight, he'd been infected with Ronan's disease.

Adam had spent the last four hours tersely clicking through used car listings in the nearby area.  His scowl deepened as the night progressed, handwritten notes and phone numbers devolving into nearly illegible scrawl.  Ronan's patience eroded with every exasperated exclamation.  Adam slammed the pen down, clenching his fingers in his own hair.

"That's it.  We're getting out of here," Ronan stated flatly.

Adam threw up his hands.  "No, it's fine.  I'll just need to go outside or something.  I don't have time to deal with this!  I don't want to spend my entire weekend at home looking for another barely functional piece of shit.  I don't want to spend," he glared at the screen, "$5,650 on another barely functional piece of shit."

Ronan looked at him significantly.

"No!  Okay? No.  I can't let you buy me a car.  I just . . . I can't."

Ronan did not speak.  He stood there, arms crossed, looking supremely unimpressed.  Bored, even.

Adam already resided in Ronan's house and let Ronan pay his rent on his college apartment.  He could be comfortable with Ronan buying groceries and paying for eating out.  He had even consented to carrying around a credit card connected to Ronan's account in case of emergency (he'd only used it twice for towing the Hondayota).  But there were levels.  Adam had every intention of staying with Ronan as long as Ronan was willing to stay with him.  The fact was, they were 20-year-olds in a mostly long-distance relationship they had started in high school.  Adam had to consider the practical likelihood that something could change.  If it did, Adam could definitely get a job to cover his modest rent and buy food.  He could let go of the credit card.  But a car payment for a new car, especially one selected by Ronan?  Not feasible.  He could not share this reason with Ronan without a) making Ronan depressed and angry that Adam had a contingency plan for relationship apocalypse, b) starting an incredibly stressful fight that would draw out for weeks, and c) ruining his entire time at home, along with probably the next two.  Better to stomp around in wordless anger.

Ronan slammed the laptop shut.

"Dammit, Ronan!"

"Shut up.  We're leaving."

Ronan forcibly shoved him out the door.  Not interested in inevitably losing a contest of brute strength with Ronan, Adam allowed himself to be shoved.  Mostly.

They were headed for the BMW.  Ronan's enormous truck, still hitched to the corpse of the tri-colored car, loomed abstractly near the closest barn.  Adam automatically made for the passenger side.  Ronan pushed the keys at his chest.

"Nope.  You're driving."

Adam sputtered in protest.  "I don't even want to leave! Why can't you-"

Ronan shoved him again, hard.

"Just get behind the fucking wheel.  I'll tell you where to go."

Adam stomped over to the driver's side and flung himself into the seat, slamming the door shut.  He turned on the car (the deep rumble of the engine was, admittedly, a little satisfying).  Ronan waited until Adam pulled onto the main road before issuing commands.

"You are driving a BMW M3 with a motherfucking V8.  This car can do 150 on the highway without breaking a sweat.  Driving it like you're somebody's fucking grandma is an insult.  Put your foot on the goddamn gas."

Adam tsked, his hands tightening on the wheel.  "It's night, Ronan. We could hit an animal or another car.  I don't want a ticket on my license."

Ronan flicked his ear, hard.

"Ow!  You asshole!"

"So fucking pay attention."  Ronan flicked him again.

"Goddammit, Ronan, quit it!"

Ronan brought his hand up.  Adam flinched reflexively.

"Every time that needle dips below 60, I will do it again."

Ronan demonstrated his commitment.

Adam let out wordless snarl of frustration, but he punched the accelerator and punished the gear shift.  It didn't take long for the task to absorb all his attention.  The BMW was low to the ground, perfectly made for sharp turns at high speed. Adam had driven it many times, but had not fully appreciated the perfect responsiveness of the steering, the smooth performance of the shocks, the way it cut through the night like a samurai sword.  Ronan would occasionally bark a direction at him, but was otherwise quiet and vividly alert.  He put on electronica with a deep trippy baseline that seemed to bring a new dimension to the darkness.  Adam's pulse tried to match it.  The challenge of navigating these sparsely populated midnight roadways while maintaining that minimum speed was silencing his analytical inner monologue, but building a wave of adrenaline that would have to crest at some point or kill him.

They found themselves on the outskirts of Henrietta, forced to intermittently abandon Ronan's minimum speed for the occasional stoplight.

Out by the dreaded fairgrounds, something rolled up next to them at an interminable red light.  It was a poison green Nissan GT-R, slammed to the pavement with a cartoonish spoiler at the back.  The engine revved in challenge.  Any other night, Adam would have let the other car pass by without a second thought.  Tonight, he'd been infected with Ronan's disease.

The GT-R was had a little faster 0-60, but the BMW was something of an intimidating legend in these back roads, better piloted than most of the competition.

Adam revved the BMW in taunting challenge.  He readied to make a fast break off the line.  He did not look at Ronan, eyes fixed on the light, but he could feel Ronan's energy syncing up with his.

"You gonna help?" Adam asked.

"Fuck, yes."

Ronan placed his hand over Adam's on the shift.

"Where's the finish?"

"Third light.  Don't shift until I tell you. Don't wait for the light. 2, 1, now!"

The BMW leapt like a panther and moved with the same elegance.  The GT-R shot forward faster, but the kid driving it was shit with the clutch.  The Nissan jerked out of its forward momentum just enough.  Ronan waited for the RPM to go deep into the red before yelling "Now!" at Adam, aggression matching his own on the gear shift, Adam moving smoothly through each transition.  They blew through the third light half a car length ahead of the GT-R.

"Yes!" Adam crowed.  The Nissan fell back.  Adam slowed just enough to execute a squealing u-turn with the help of the parking brake that left the back end fishtailing. He sped back toward the Nissan.  When they got close enough, he rolled down the window and shouted "Learn to drive your rice rocket, fucker!" before speeding triumphantly into the night.  He could not wipe the smile off his face.  Ronan's hand still gripped his on the gear shift.

"That was fucking hot," Ronan said in a tightly controlled monotone.  "The race was sexy.  The fucking u-turn was off the charts."

Adam laughed, glancing at Ronan sitting stiffly in the passenger seat.

"I kinda see why you do it.  You look like you're about to puke."

"I'm about to come in my pants.  If you pull over in the next five minutes, I will give you the most amazing blow job.  Ever."

Adam glanced at him again.  "Seriously?" He asked a little skeptical.

"Pull over," said Ronan.

Adam found a small, overgrown side road.  He pulled onto it and drove just far enough along to hide the main road from sight.  This was probably a driveway to a small cluster of hidden houses, but at one in the morning, there was almost no chance anyone would be using it.

As soon as they stopped, Ronan clicked off his seatbelt and leapt on Adam.  Adam moved to turn off the car, but Ronan growled into his mouth "Leave the engine running."

In the ensuing 22 minutes, Adam was quite thoroughly reminded that Ronan never lied.

They pulled into the parking area of the Barns before dawn, but not far from it.  Adam pulled the keys from the ignition and held them out to Ronan.

"Thanks," he said, "That was pretty amazing."

"Which part?" asked Ronan smugly.

Adam was loose with satisfaction.  "All of it."

Ronan nodded.  He still had not taken the keys.

"Good.  You've proven yourself worthy.  Those are yours now," Ronan said.

"What?" cried Adam, totally taken aback.

"This is your car."

Adam gaped, opening and closing his mouth.  "But-"

"I mostly drive the truck anyway."

"You can't drive the truck 150 miles per hour to New Jersey in the middle of the night."

Ronan smiled sharply.

"You wanna see my new toy?"

Adam followed him numbly to the nearest barn.

Ronan opened one of the massive doors and flicked on the overhead light.  The vehicle inside was not just a car.  It was a sculpture exemplifying the concept of speed.

"You bought a Corvette?" Adam asked in quiet disbelief.

Adam might not have been quite as car-obsessed as Ronan, but he was a connoisseur of expensive status symbols.  This sexy, robust animal had caught his eye in many magazine spreads and Internet articles.  His perusals of it had been akin to accidental glances at porn - stimulating, but too outlandish to hold interest for more than a few seconds; a little embarrassing to be caught ogling.  This was the Grand Sport - perhaps the new model year?  Adam did not recall the hood being quite so long, nor had he seen the distinctively black on black paint job.  Usually the hash marks were a contrasting color.

Ronan's grin promised danger.  "I didn't buy it."

Adam could not take his eyes off it.  "It has a top speed of 195.  You're going to get so many tickets.  You're going to permanently lose your license," he said in a reverent hush, circling it like it might leap at him.

"Psssh," said Ronan, "This beauty has some tricks.  Paint makes it invisible to radar. Truly invisible. I could drive right by a cop and he'd pick up nothing."

Adam's eyebrows went up.  "You've tested this?"

Ronan went to a corner and picked up a police radar gun duct taped to a muddy post, shaking it at Adam. Adam shook his head, dumbfounded.  "I am honestly afraid you will die in this car."

"Wanna see the inside?" Ronan asked.

Adam did.  He gingerly opened the passenger door.  The interior was varying shades of grey, enough contrast to the exterior to walk the correct side of the line between pretention and luxury.

"Look out the windshield," said Ronan.

Adam's head jerked up.  He was astonished all over again.  It was still night. Outside the car, the corners of the Barn had been pitch black, the view out the open door a dark hazy blur.  From inside the car, everything was clear and crisp as day.

"You have night vision?"

"This is the greatest car ever fucking dreamt," Ronan preened.  Adam could not disagree.

"I'm going to go ahead and call it a masterpiece.  How did you get it so accurate?"

"I've been test driving them for 6 months.  Had to drive to fucking North Carolina the last few weeks.  None of the dealers in Virginia or West Virginia would let me without buying."

Adam ran a loving hand over the dashboard.

"Is your old girl jealous of your new trophy wife?" Adam asked, referring to the BMW, which seemed positively suburban by comparison.

"A little, but I told her I'd leave her in good hands," Ronan replied.

Adam looked at him for a long moment. As usual, Ronan had managed to transform a gesture he could not possibly accept to a casual inevitability.  He nodded.

"Wanna go for a ride?" asked Ronan.

"Is it safe?"

"Safe as life," Ronan said with his feral smile.

***

Two weeks later, Ronan came to visit Adam for the weekend.  Adam knew he owed most of the honor to Ronan looking for a good excuse to put the Corvette through its paces. He insisted on dropping Adam off on campus Friday morning.  No head failed to turn as the ostentatious black Corvette rumbled past.  Adam could see Ronan glorying in the envious attention.

"See you at three?" Adam asked.

"Yeah."

"You know that anyone I ever managed to convince I'm not your boy toy will never believe me now," Adam said with humor.

"That's stupid.  It should be obvious that I'm the arm candy.  You're so broke because you spend every dime showering me with gifts in exchange for sex."

Adam nodded soberly.  "That makes much more sense.  I've always had trouble with impulse control."

"Damn right.  I'm going home to get some rest before you press me back into service.  Need to keep my sugar daddy happy."

Adam laughed and got out of the car. The first person he passed happened to be someone he knew. Jacob's eyes were glued to the car as it rolled off campus.  He grabbed Adam's sleeve.

"Dude," he breathed, "I think your boyfriend might actually be Batman."

Adam laughed hard.  Wiping his eyes, he said, "I think he'd like the comparison."

"I'm serious," Jacob said, turning with him toward class.  "That's the coolest and scariest guy I've ever seen.  What in the hell do you guys have in common?"

"Everything we need," Adam replied, still grinning.


	16. 3 1/2 years - Surprise visit to the Barns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adam shows up unannounced at home. 
> 
> Ronan turned his head and nearly jumped out of his own skin. Right next to him, close enough to touch, was Adam fucking Parrish.   
> Ronan hurled himself out of bed and scrambled up against the wall. This was worse than bringing back a fucking night horror, worse than anything he'd ever done. His pulse was thundering so hard he thought he might be having a heart attack. What the fuck was he going to do? The body in the bed stirred, opened weary blue eyes.

It should have taken a lot more to push Adam to the wall.  He'd been though endurance trials that would have destroyed most people.  But there was something about this damn semester that was just grating him raw.  He had three classes with the same blowhard professor with a sinus issue.  Between the hideous snorting noises, the tangential rants, and his complete disregard for schedules, Adam considered the man to be a walking instrument of torture.  Tenure was bullshit.

He had secured a coveted internship at a very prestigious law firm, but the level of ass-kissing to pretentious assholes required felt like it was permanently staining his soul.

This morning, one of the partners had screamed at him for thirty minutes about not filing something at the courthouse on a day he had not even been working. Adam had no opportunity to state that pertinent fact, however.  The partner had stormed out, telling Adam, "Fuck up my documents again and you can kiss your career goodbye."  One of the junior staffers, the one who had actually screwed up, sniggered through the whole thing.  The jackass had smacked his shoulder afterward and said, "Survival tip, southern boy.  When in peril, blame the intern!"

And just like that, Adam was done.  He was beyond done. Between the demands of his internship and school, he hadn't been home in nearly two months.  Ronan and Opal had been up to visit, but it wasn't the same.  It was like going to a fancy restaurant and ordering your favorite dish only to get a three-bite helping - delicious, but when it was gone, you were nearly as hungry as when you began.

He was supposed to be going home for spring break anyway.  If he powered through the next few hours, he could email his final papers and skip Thursday and Friday classes.  He'd make up an excuse for the law office tomorrow - they could live without him for a day.  It's not like they paid him much of anything.

Adam went back to his apartment, started the coffee maker, and finished his obligations with blazing urgency.  Everything took longer than he thought.  It was past 11:00 when he finished.  It would be smart to get some rest and hit the road first thing in the morning.  But . . .the image of the pinking dawn over the Barns burned behind his eyelids.  Everything in this apartment smelled like coffee and take-out and dirty laundry, even though he'd cleaned up and stuffed his laundry in a duffel bag to take with him.  He needed the unique farm-forest scent of home, just so he could breathe.  If he stayed, he wouldn't sleep.  He might as well drive.

The BMW's tires crackled pleasingly on the gravel as he pulled in next to Ronan's truck a few hours later. Dawn was still a couple hours away.  It was that coldest part of the night when the dew condensed and everything smelled wet and alive. The crickets sang loudly, uncontested by street noise.  Adam stood outside shivering for long minutes, listening to all of it, aching to be done with everything that kept dragging him away from this place.  An owl hooted softly, hunting the last morsel of the night.

The house was dark and silent.  Adam deposited shoes, keys, wallet and jacket in the entry and debated.  Ronan would be up soon.  Adam could crash on the couch for a bit, rather than disturbing him.  But the idea of their comfortable room, waking next to Ronan, catching a glimpse of the blushing dawn from their window, which overlooked a fair portion of the farm - he had driven all night for exactly that.  He needed it.

Ronan snored gently, mouth agape, headphones still blaring whatever awful shit he'd fallen asleep listening to.  Though Adam had expected him to be sprawled across the entire bed, he was crumpled rather considerately on his own side, as if he'd been expecting Adam to climb in any minute.  Adam left his t-shirt and jeans in heap on the floor and crawled into his perfectly preserved spot.  It took his last ounce of willpower not to groan in satisfaction - that miraculous moment of collapsing into his very own bed when he'd been awake for more than a full day.  The bed in the apartment never felt as welcoming.  He was asleep in a handful of breaths.

***

Ronan's dream brought him into Cabeswater, as it often did.  He could tell Adam was here, just out of sight, and this too was typical - Adam was often on his mind.  Dream Adam could be a guilty fantasy or the worst of nightmares, depending on Ronan's preoccupations.  He avoided fantasy Adam just as assiduously as nightmare Adam.  While nightmare Adam was a manifestation of Ronan's insecurities, fantasy Adam was the product of all his lonely longing and far more dangerous.  He did not want a copy, slavishly devoted to him, all unwitting.  Part of Adam's appeal was his fierce autonomy.  Ronan had earned Adam's love - he wanted to keep earning it.

He traveled warily through the forest, unsure which version he might be facing.  He wound up in the willow glen, real Adam's favorite place, and there he was, reclining by the stream, letting the water sift through his elegant fingers.  Ronan knew he should run the other way, bury himself in some other detail of the dream, but before he could gather his intention, Adam looked at him.  His smile was uncomplicated delight and Ronan could feel his feet sinking deep into the grassy turf as if it was wet cement.  Maybe he could let himself enjoy this, just a little.  He'd been too long without the real thing. "Don't touch," he told himself, closing his eyes.

But Dream Adam wasn't going to make it that easy.  Ronan opened his eyes to find Dream Adam right beside him.  He leaned closer and Ronan could actually feel the humid warmth of his breath on his shoulder. There was even a scent - the cheap shampoo Adam bought for his apartment, the chemical mint of mouthwash.  This was excessively detailed, entirely too fucking real. 

"Did you miss me?" Dream Adam asked.  He stroked Ronan's cheek with cool, damp fingers.

Ronan was fucking helpless.  He nodded as fervently as a little kid.

Dream Adam's lips just touched his, all patient gentleness.  "Wake up," he whispered against Ronan's mouth.

Ronan started.  "What?" he said, but he was already opening his eyes, hearing the music thudding in his headphones, the dream utterly dissolved.

Ronan turned his head and nearly jumped out of his own skin.  Right next to him, close enough to touch, was Adam fucking Parrish. 

Ronan hurled himself out of bed and scrambled up against the wall.  This was worse than bringing back a fucking night horror, worse than anything he'd ever done.  His pulse was thundering so hard he thought he might be having a heart attack.  What the fuck was he going to do? The body in the bed stirred, opened weary blue eyes.

"Ronan?" he asked sleepily, "what's going on?"

Ronan continued to regard him with the same frozen horror he'd give a rearing cobra.

Sudden apprehension clouded Adam's face and he jumped out of the bed as well.  "Shit," he said, looking frantically at the bed and then all around his person, "did you bring back a flesh-eating spider or something?"

This seemed like a strange question for Dream Adam to ask.  Incongruities began to break through Ronan's panic.  The Adam in front of him was pleasingly arrayed in nothing but his underwear, while he was sure the dream version had been fully dressed.  This one's hair was a little shaggier and there were deep shadows under his eyes.

"Where did you come from?" Ronan asked, cold and suspicious.

Adam glared at him.  "Princeton," he said peevishly, "and if there's nothing in that bed, I'm getting back in it.  I've been driving most of the damn night."  He dove back into the bed, punched the pillow once, and settled himself on his side, facing away from Ronan, shoulders and blanket hunched up around his ears.  He was grumbling something about the couch.

Dawn had begun to lighten the room.  All the evidence was pointing to this Adam being the genuine article.  Ronan felt a little battered from the cocktail of adrenaline, relief, embarrassment, and irritation.  He sat down on the bed and poked Adam's stiff form.

"Oh, no, you shit.  You're not supposed to be here until Friday.  What happened?"

"I didn't realize I had to stick to my visitation schedule," Adam said, all the Henrietta cadence clipped right out of his words.  He shuffled his feet violently to kick off the blanket.  "I'll just go elsewhere until my pre-authorized appointment."

Ronan tackled him, pinning him down before he could get all the way up.

"Shut your stupid face," Ronan said, mentally kicking himself.  There was nothing on earth he wanted more than Adam here every goddamned second.

"I thought you were a dream thing," Ronan mumbled.

Adam bristled for another two seconds until the information sank in and all the tension went out of him. He precisely understood all the layered horror of that scenario.  "Ro, I didn't even think - shit.  I'm sorry."

Adam was twisted on his side, Ronan's weight awkwardly smashing his right arm into the mattress.  The sheets and comforter were hopelessly twined around his legs.  Ronan rested his forehead on Adam's shoulder, eyes closed, breathing him in. 

"You gonna let me up?" Adam asked.

"Depends," Ronan said into his arm, "You sure you're real?"

"BMW is parked outside," Adam offered.

This was a reasonable fact Ronan could check, though he was 95% certain the Adam under his hands was entirely real.  Ronan began easing off, allowing Adam to shift, when he spotted something black over his left shoulder blade. 

"Oomph," Adam exclaimed into the pillow as Ronan unceremoniously shoved him down on his face.

"What the fuck is this?" Ronan demanded, jabbing at Adam's back.

"What's it look like?" Adam sniped, mouth full of pillow.

Floating to the left of Adam's spine, on the upper quadrant of his back, was an infinity symbol, roughly 6 inches long.  The twining band was made up of minuscule symbols woven into one another with an endless leafy vine.  Ronan traced it with a fingertip.  The symbols were small and stylized, but he recognized the four tarot suits, a raven, a willow leaf, a Celtic knot . . .

"Am I allowed to breathe yet?" Adam asked.

Ronan acceded reluctantly, moving to sit cross-legged on his side of the bed.  Adam flopped over onto his back, allowing his lungs to finally open up all the way.

"I can't believe you didn't tell me you got a fucking tattoo," Ronan said, hurt bleeding into his voice a little.

"I thought Opal told you about it," Adam said, as if it was the most sensible, obvious thing in the world.

"Opal?" Ronan sputtered.  "How in the hell would Opal know and not me?"

"She drew it for me.  She gave it to me right before you guys left, remember?" Adam asked, tone all condescending, implying Ronan never paid attention to anything.

Adam was such a pissy little bitch when he didn't sleep.  A small part of him was tempted to go back to sleep to see if fantasy Adam was still hanging out in his dream. 

When they had left Princeton, Ronan had been too busy convincing Chainsaw to get in the car and shoving all of Opal's shit in the trunk to pay attention to the paper Opal had bestowed upon Adam before she nearly strangled him with a ferocious hug.  And he'd completely forgotten about it after listening to her sniffle sadly for the first hour, then complain painfully for the next four and a half.  Admittedly, he'd been feeling a little miserable too, which had added to the distraction.

"She's always writing you fucking love notes and drawing you pictures and shit.  That hag at the post office gives her candy, we're in there so goddamn much.  How was I supposed to know she was designing fucking body art?"

Ronan could tell from the proud little grin that popped onto Adam's face that reminders of Opal's adorable devotion to him had cut through his tired snit.  He knew Adam carefully kept all Opal's correspondence in a three-ring binder in his apartment.  That brat had him in the palm of her hand.

"I think it was a one-time thing," Adam said wryly. 

He sat up and scooted over until his arm was pressed up against Ronan's, leg tucked under knee.  The underhanded tactic reminded Ronan that Adam was actually physically present and not wearing a whole lot.  He fought to remain undistracted.  Only two fingers found their way onto Adam's thigh - respectfully restrained.

"I thought you heard us talking about it when I was here over winter break," Adam said.  His hand wound itself in and out of Ronan's t-shirt.  "She said you had your dreamer's mark - I should have a magus mark."

"The kid makes your life decisions now?  I'm a little jealous.  You never do shit just because I tell you."

Adam snorted.  He slumped down a little to rest his head on Ronan's shoulder.  "I let you convince me to do tons of stupid shit.  With this," he paused, thumbing a jagged scar across his rib cage, "I kind of liked the idea of a having a mark I chose.  Keeping the things that matter to me."

Ronan placed his hand on Adam's neck and lightly stroked the edge of his hairline beneath his ear with a thumb while he considered this.  Adam had spent many years as a quiet victim, and he bore many marks from it.  Ronan knew each of them intimately.  Cabeswater and the ley line, the keys that had opened the door to Adam's own power, were far away when he was at school.  Opal, as usual, was right.  Adam should have a permanent reminder that he was something more.  And Ronan understood why he'd want to be alone to execute the decision.

The sun was rising outside.  He could faintly hear the rooster greeting the day.  Adam had already fallen asleep, slumped against him.  Ronan eased Adam back down onto his pillow.

"Welcome home, asshole.  You scared the shit out of me," he whispered.

Adam made an incoherent sleepy noise in response.  Ronan got dressed to start his morning chores before he could get too sappy.

Opal was already clattering around the kitchen.  He leaned against the counter, observing her fondly for a few minutes, before he spoke.

"Adam's here."

"No shit," she said, mouth full of cereal.  "I saw the car."

"Watch your fucking language," he said mildly.

"You first," she replied.

Ronan chuckled.  "He got the tattoo."

She smirked knowingly before shoveling another enormous spoonful into her mouth.

"Does it look good?" she asked once she was actively chewing and it could be extra disgusting when she opened her mouth.

"It's not bad, but I don't think you should quit your day job yet, kid."

She scoffed at him.  "It's perfect and you know it," she replied with textbook Lynch arrogance.

Ronan felt an absurd swell of pride.

"Can I go wake him up?"  Opal asked hopefully.

"No.  He only got here a little while ago.  It's spring break.  You'll have plenty of time to fucking dote on him later."  He made a little gagging gesture.

"Right," she huffed, "I don't even want to see him until you're done slobbering all over each other.  You guys are gross."  She made a more pronounced gagging gesture.

Ronan flushed a little, annoyed at how well she'd pegged him.  Opal tossed her dirty bowl in the sink and flounced toward the door.

"You need to respect your fucking elders," Ronan griped.

She turned back to him, a wise, wicked look in her eyes.  "What makes you think you came first, Greywaren?  Maybe I was already there when you called for me."

Opal held his gaze for another deep second before she disappeared out the door.

Ronan just stood in the kitchen, shaken to his core.  Was she just being a snarky little shit, or did that mean something?  Thank God Adam was here.  He needed someone to help him wrap his head around it.

Opal had better be prepared to wait most of the day for her reunion with Adam.  After that little grenade, Ronan needed extended slobbering time.


	17. 3 1/2 years - Dream Musings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What is Opal? Where did she come from?
> 
> "Did I make you? Do you know?"  
> "Hmmm. I look like you think I should."  
> "What the fuck does that even mean?" Ronan asked, finding the quixotic workings of her mind as frustrating as ever.  
> "It means you're a dumbshit."  
> It was like talking to the fucking Cheshire Cat. Was that his fault or Cabeswater's? He had no idea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is light on the romance, heavy on Opal and dream stuff. It may not be your cup of tea, but I needed it to set up the end of the story. So, if you skip it, I get it.

Adam's attempt to get more information from her was futile.  He tried the next afternoon, sitting with her under the shade of a large Sycamore.

"Where did you go when Ronan was awake, before he brought you out?"

She shrugged, disinterested, working on an elaborate daisy crown.  "There's no when."

Adam tsked.  "What does that mean?"

Opal only glanced up at him, but there was enough sardonic tolerance in it to make him feel like an idiot.  "When.  Time.  It's not like," she pointed at the watch face on her wrist. 

The original band had long since disintegrated, but she insisted on keeping the clockwork.  She now had half a dozen different bands she would switch out at will.  Adam frowned thoughtfully, trying to force his brain to click around the concept.

"In the dream place, all time is the same.  The Greywaren is always there and never there," she added.

Adam snatched at a dangling thread.  "So the dream place was there even if Ronan wasn't?  How is there a dream without someone to dream it?"

She lifted her brows, but didn't say anything.

"I know, I know, that's what Cabeswater is, but that's different," he responded as though she had spoken.  "Were you ever in his dream when it _wasn't_ Cabeswater?"

She shrugged again.  "There's no when," she said.

Opal examined her daisy crown critically, then laid it gently on Adam's head.  Her brow furrowed.  She turned, grabbed two branching twigs, and stuck them in on each side.  The serious expression held for about five seconds.  A laugh burst out of her and kept going for a long minute.

"You look so fucking stupid!" she wheezed.

Adam tossed the crown off to the side with a sigh.  The conversation was obviously over.  Still smiling, Opal took his face in between her delicate hands.

"You can't logic it, dumbass.  You have to just let yourself know."  She kissed his forehead.

"I wish you wouldn't curse," he said mournfully.

"I wish butterflies could sing. Let's play tag.  You're it."

Opal bolted off into the grass.  As he chased her, he wondered what butterfly singing might sound like.

Ronan's attempt wasn't much better.  He walked with her as she went to her little house for the night.

"Many thieves, one Greywaren.  You told me that."

"Yes," she said, doing a little dance to see if the dream lights would follow her.

"Did you ever see them? The others?" he asked carefully.  He was thinking of his father, and of Kavinsky.

"Sometimes, but they didn't see me," she said absently, doing a complicated hop/spin that made the dream lights funnel in a momentary whirlwind.

"Did I make you?  Do you know?"

"Hmmm.  I look like you think I should."

"What the fuck does that even mean?"  Ronan asked, finding the quixotic workings of her mind as frustrating as ever.

"It means you're a dumbshit."

It was like talking to the fucking Cheshire Cat.  Was that his fault or Cabeswater's?  He had no idea.

"Opal," he said, all serious, catching her thin shoulders gently under his hands, "Where did you come from?"

She blinked at him.  "Ask Cabeswater," she said simply.  "I'm tired.  Good night, Kerah," Opal said, wiggling out of his hold and disappearing into her house.

Adam and Ronan compared notes later that night.

"I got 'time is all in your head' and possibly that she was restricted to Cabeswater," Adam summarized, leaning on the door frame while Ronan brushed his teeth.  "And I'm a dumbass.  You might think about all the swearing around her."

Ronan spit into the sink.  "Well, I'm a dumb _shit_ , so you got off light.  Sounded to me like she was in the, like, dream dimension or whatever of Cabeswater all the time, even when I was awake.  I think she might be the same kind of thing as the forest.  I made her look like she does but . . . I don't know.  She told me to ask Cabeswater."

They regarded each other in the bathroom mirror.  Ronan's look said _what am I even asking_?  Adam's look said, _I'm not sure_.

"Blue and Gansey and Henry will be in town next week.  I think we're gonna need them," Adam said.

***

They spent a week discussing, theorizing and strategizing.  Opal provided no concrete data, either because she didn't know or because she thought they should all know already.  There didn't seem to be words they could ask the _tire e’ elintes_ that would get them to the understanding they wanted.  Even concise, direct questions often elicited indecipherable answers.  Adam would have to scry.  He needed Blue to help connect deep enough, Gansey to command him to return if he couldn't on his own, and Ronan to demand compliance from Cabeswater toward those ends. Henry, intuitive and clever, could keep all of them focused on their jobs instead of each other.

They all trekked through Cabeswater to the willow glen, as Adam felt most comfortable there.  He shooed the others away to meditate on the things he needed to keep in his head.  What exactly was Opal and what was her purpose?  Did she still have one outside the dream place?  He had to translate these questions into multi-level picture puzzles because Cabeswater didn't communicate well with human language, especially not while he was scrying.

When he was ready, they filled a dark glass bowl with water from the nearby stream.  Blue took one of his hands and Opal the other - one to push him away, one to pull him back.  Adam kept his picture puzzled firmly anchored as he let the rest of Adam Parrish fall into the leafy shadows of the water.

_A path of pulsing light, deep underground, a vein of the earth, with tiny capillaries branching from it everywhere; the complex root system of an ancient tree; hundreds of those capillaries diverting from their paths to converge in one place; Ronan, asleep, bathed in light; Cabeswater, both before and now; a little dark-haired boy cowering under dark trees, asking for help; hands opening birthday presents, tearing paper; a topographical map; Kavinsky's skeletal grin, eyes black holes in his guant face; the Knight of Wands, sword gleaming, shield embossed with three ravens; that path of light again, view zooming out to show it meeting others, stretching and grasping . . ._

"Adam Parrish, come back," a voice boomed, shaking the visions so hard they shattered.  He was drifting in a void, but he thought he could feel a tugging, something dragging him down, down.

Adam gasped an enormous breath.  The day felt abnormally bright as he blinked rapidly.  Blue was far from him, her expression fierce and terrified, tucked inside Henry's arm.  The bowl was overturned in front of him, water soaking into his pant legs.  Opal clung to his arm, shaking, and Ronan was yelling something at him he couldn't quite understand yet, but it was probably mostly cussing.  Gansey looked weary.  Adam half tuned them out, filing away what he'd seen and analyzing it slowly.

He was jolted by the sudden appearance of Ronan's face in his, roughly shaking his shoulders.  "Snap the fuck out of it, Parrish," he snarled, but Adam saw no anger, only fear on his face.

"'M okay, Ro.  Just give me a second."

Naked relief washed over Ronan.  "I hate when you do this shit."

Adam grinned a little. "Much worse than homicidal nightmares, huh?"

"Shut up," Ronan said shakily.  He leaned his forehead against Adam's for a full minute.  After that, the background throat clearing got too invasive to ignore.  Ronan stalked away to pace.

"So?"  Blue asked abruptly. 

Opal looked at Adam expectantly.  He reached out a hand that she took in both of hers.

"She comes from the same place Cabeswater does.  Ronan picked what she looks like, but he didn't necessarily make her.  She's a helper for the Greywaren, to take care of the line.  So Opal's a dream thing, but maybe more Cabeswater's than Ronan's."

Opal nodded sagely, as if this confirmed something she had already suspected.

“What I don’t understand,” continued Adam, speaking directly to Opal, “is if that was your job, why did you want to get out so bad?”

Everyone was quiet, waiting for Opal.  Even the birds had gone silent.  “Do you ever wonder what it would be like to fly?” she asked.

Adam squeezed his eyes shut.  He mind was tired and stretched thin and he wasn’t sure he was up for deciphering whatever was going to come out of her mouth.  Thankfully, Ronan sat down right next to her, grabbing up her attention.  He seemed to have miraculously picked up the frequency she was broadcasting on.

“Yes,” he answered firmly. 

Her expression was wildly alive, all her attention on Ronan.  “So, what if you were Chainsaw?  You can fly over all the Barns and anywhere else you want.  One day, someone calls your name.  You didn’t even know you had a name before this, but when you hear it, you know it’s you and only you he’s calling, not just any raven.  He brings you inside a room with a big window where you can still see all the places you flew, but no matter how big you stretch your wings, you can’t get out of the room.  The room can change shapes and sizes and colors, but it’s always a room you can’t get out of.  The whole world is right on the other side of the window, but you can’t touch it.”

A single tear rolled down the side of Ronan’s nose, apparently unnoticed by him.  “I’m sorry,” he whispered.  Everyone but Adam looked away from them, feeling like intruders.

Opal threw her arms around his neck and hugged him fiercely.  “Kerah,” she cawed softly, “you opened the door.  Even though I have to walk instead of fly, I’m still out of the room.”

Ronan simply held her.  A pair of butterflies flitted past Adam’s head.  A weird, high-pitched squeaking noise suddenly rent the air.  Ronan and Opal’s heads both whipped in the direction of the sound.  It continued to emanate from the general vicinity of the butterflies.  Adam flushed crimson.  Opal turned incredulously to Adam.

“That’s the best you can come up with?” she asked.  “You really are a dumbass.”

Ronan sat back and roared with laughter. 

“I feel like I’m missing something,” Gansey said.

“I wished butterflies could sing,” Opal told him, “and that shit is what we got.”  She shook her head with distaste while everyone else laughed and Adam huffed in humiliated silence.

“I think we need pizza,” Henry proclaimed.  “Let’s get back to civilization, where the insect life won’t offend our delicate ears.”


	18. 5 years - 3 of Swords, 2 of Cups

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adam’s jaw was clenched, but he spoke through it. “Christ, Ronan. You speak three languages and you don’t know how to talk in any of them.”

Adam was in the reading room with Maura, puzzling over how to approach the tarot. Beyond the doorway, the noise and bustle of 300 Fox Way rose and fell, but did not disturb him. He raked a frustrated hand through his hair.

“Something’s been nagging me all week, but I don’t know how to ask about it. I pull cards and try to scry through them, but it’s still a jumble.”

Maura nodded. “It has to do with you, and you’re too deep in the middle of it. You have to step away from it. Turn around and look at it out of the corner of your eye.”

Adam expelled an exasperated sigh. “I’m just not sure how to do that. I wish . . .I wish Persephone was here.”

Maura’s sigh echoed his in a sadder, more resigned tone. “Maybe you should reach out for her energy. It might help you.”

Adam looked at Maura’s tight little frown. “I thought she’d, you know, gone on.”

Maura smiled a little sadly. “Yes, but she lived here a long time. There are echoes, if you call them.”

Adam shuffled the slightly oversized deck again with his eyes closed, and instead of thinking about the tingle of nausea in the pit of his stomach, or the edge of a headache that had been plaguing him, he thought of Persephone. He remembered her beautiful hands, her nimbus of hair, her enigmatic black eyes. Help me see it, he thought.

He turned over three cards: Three of Swords, Two of Cups, the Magician.

Adam frowned at them. “You see? That seems contradictory.” He looked away from the cards and up at Maura’s sympathetic face.

“There’s a crossroads coming. Your approach will determine the outcome. Here’s my best advice. Try to let go of what’s happening in the moment and allow yourself to see the line the next second is pushing you down,” she said, placing a gentle fingertip directly in between his brows. “You have a gift for long sight. Don’t blind yourself.”

Adam contemplated the cards. Three swords, shoved brutally through a heart from every angle; two full cups, overlapping, held in harmonious hands; a solitary figure, hands upraised, all the tarot suits waiting for him to order them. He grunted. “Ronan,” he mumbled, packing that word with all the tangled love and frustration only it could invoke.

Maura smiled, gently patting his cheek. “He’s a pain in the ass, but he’s your pain in the ass. You’ll figure it out.”

Adam nodded thoughtfully as he packed up his cards and headed back to the Barns. The situation would come when it was time. He would leave the vague foreboding in the background and enjoy the beauty of the blossoming summer in those sweet green fields.

Two days later, Mr. Gray returned quietly to Henrietta, straight into Maura’s arms. Two days after that, he arrived at the Barns, looking solid and confident. He had requested a meeting with both Ronan and Adam. Though Ronan allowed Mr. Gray into the house and sat at the large wooden table in the kitchen across from him unmoving, Adam could feel the tension rippling off him in waves. It had been nearly five years since they’d seen Mr. Gray. He looked as comfortably dangerous as ever, but Ronan was a grown man in his own home, not a raw teenager. Still, he would not like to see Ronan fight this man.

“Your home is as charming as I remember,” Mr. Gray began pleasantly.

“What do you want?” Ronan returned abruptly. Mr. Gray did not acknowledge the rudeness.

“First, I came to tell you that Lamonier is dead. They were the greatest threat to you and to this place, and they have been eliminated from the field.”

“He wasn’t the only one. What’s happening with the rest of them?” Adam asked. He surreptitiously laid a hand on Ronan’s jiggling knee, the mostly hidden outlet for his volatile energy.

“I’ve personally taken over the management of the magical artifact trade,” Mr. Gray replied. In the ensuing silence, fuzzy visions of the strength, time, and violence this coup had required batted at Adam. He allowed the images to fade without coming into focus.

“It has been universally accepted in the trade that the Greywaren was a tall tale, invented by Niall Lynch, perpetuated by Colin Greenmantle. The buyers believe that the supply of artifacts from the Lynch family died with Niall. Declan’s involvement after his death was obviously a mere conclusion of the business, rather than a continuance. It helps that the energy anomalies around Henrietta have remained relatively stable in the last few years. Your family and your property are no longer in the spotlight of interest, but I would generally advise you to keep the Barns as secure as possible. Outsiders should be carefully screened. There is much here that would be unscrupulously coveted.”

Ronan’s posture eased fractionally. Adam wasn’t sure what to do at this point. Ronan was still glaring suspiciously, masking his own uncertainty with general malevolence.

“Thanks for telling us all that, Mr. Gray. It’s a relief to hear about the reduced likelihood of someone coming to cut off Ronan’s head. Now he only has to worry about the people he pisses off in the usual ways.”

“He’s got something else,” Ronan said quietly, “He could have told us all that at Fox Way.”

Mr. Gray nodded appreciatively. “As I said, this is a lovely property. I assume it can be costly to keep up.”

“I manage,” Ronan growled. 

This line of conversation jolted Adam a bit. He had always thought of Ronan’s bank account as bottomless, but he had no idea what it cost to maintain the Barns, and was unsure that Ronan actually turned a profit with his dubiously productive farming activities.

“I can offer you a potentially lucrative opportunity. If you would like to be a supplier, albeit a silent one, I will be your conduit. I would not divulge to any buyers that artifacts came from you, or anywhere in the vicinity of Henrietta. As you know, I have a vested interest in keeping those unsavory types away from here. I will be traveling, often, as a part of this business.”

Ronan stood abruptly, walked to the window, and stared out at the fields, arms crossed.

“I’d just have to trust you,” Ronan replied.

“Yes. That is one of the reasons I requested Adam also be present at this meeting. You’ll need to discuss it together.”

Adam’s brows pinched together. “I’m not exactly the one to plead your case, Mr. Gray. And I’m not supplying anything. This is Ronan’s home and Ronan’s choice. I don’t have the right to tell him what to do.”

Mr. Gray regarded them both for a long moment. “Forgive me if I’m incorrect, but I was under the impression that you two were in a long-term, committed relationship.”

Adam and Ronan both nodded. This was not a secret. “I was also under the impression that the Barns has become your home, Adam.” Adam nodded again, a little slower, noting Ronan watching him stealthily from the corner of his eye.

“One would conclude,” Mr. Gray continued, “that neither of you is in a position to make a decision of this significance alone. It will affect both of you equally.”

Ronan and Adam glanced at each other, mirroring discomfort with this astute observation between them. Mr. Gray rose to leave. He shook Adam’s hand as well as Ronan’s.

“I’ll leave you to consider. You know how to contact me. Whatever you decide, the security of your family and the Barns is a priority for me.”

Adam thanked him and showed him out the door. Ronan remained silently peering out the window. By the time Adam had returned to the kitchen, Ronan was already striding out to vanish himself among the barns. Adam felt the weight of sharp swords hovering nearby. Appropriate that the King of Swords would leave a few in his wake.

Ronan did not come inside again during the daylight. Growing restless and lonely, Adam visited Opal’s house in the afternoon. They played her favorite polyglot story game in English, Latin, Greek, and dream language. She took him for a walk in the nearby wood to find a nest of baby rabbits and a particularly beautiful tree. She returned to the house with him for dinner, but Ronan was conspicuously absent. As Adam walked with Opal back to her little dwelling for the night, he broached the subject with her.

“Do you know where he’s hiding?”

She turned her enormous eyes up to him. Her white-blond hair was kept short, though she now reserved the skull cap for cold weather. She was growing into more of a young woman than a little girl, but was still so slight and slender, it was sometimes hard for Adam to remember she wasn’t the child she had been.

“I haven’t seen.”

“Do I chase him or leave him be? I can’t tell which one he wants.”

She smiled a little, shyly. “It feels more like sad than angry. I don’t think he’s ready to share yet.”

“Can you tell how he feels?” Adam asked, genuinely curious. Her statements about Ronan were often vague but accurate, and he did wonder how deep their connection went.

She cocked her head in a bird-like way. “I don’t know. We were friends in the other place, and he didn’t hide things there. Maybe I just know what he’s like.”

“Do you think you know what I’m like? The same way?” He asked.

She laughed her little tinkling laugh. “Not the same. But I think I know what you’re like too.”

“Because of what Ronan knows or what you learned?”

She just smiled, whistled a little tune that indicated she was not going to indulge his intellectual curiosity, and kissed his cheek before ducking into her house for bed. His heart ached a little. He meandered slowly back to the house, looking for Ronan but not seeing him anywhere. Usually, on a night like this when Adam had only been home for a couple weeks, he and Ronan would be teasing one another, leading up to energetic sex somewhere in the house or on the grounds. The first sword slowly slid into place, originating behind his left shoulder blade, slicing into his heart. Adam fell asleep in front of the TV on the couch, alone. He woke a little after 3:00 a.m. to the sound of fuzz. The second sword stabbed him with a fearful rush. He turned off the TV and wandered through the house, looking for a likely place Ronan may have passed out. Confirming he was not inside, Adam determined it was time to search. Pissy silence all day was one thing. Pissy insomnia was an entirely different animal.

It didn’t take long in the deep, quiet dark to spot the confluence of little lights over the equipment shed. A few crumpled beer cans littered the ground. Reluctantly, Adam climbed up to the roof to confront the beast in his lair. Ronan hunched in the center of a swarm of dancing lights, most of the way through a 6-pack of beer, chucking the contents of a pile of acorns to the ground despondently.

Adam sat on the roof near but not directly adjacent to Ronan. He observed the glittering swathe of the Milky Way for a few minutes before he spoke. “Did I do something wrong?”

Ronan flung another nut into the darkness. “No.”

Nothing else seemed to be forthcoming. The swords in Adam’s heart sunk a little deeper. “Spit it out, Lynch,” he said, more testily than he intended. Adam was tired, and Ronan’s sulks could be exasperating knots to unravel.

Another long silence and another nut departed the dwindling pile. “I think we should break up.”

The third sword thrust roughly into the mess. Adam could barely breathe through all the blood. He wondered if it was dribbling out his mouth while he replied, “When did you decide this?”

Ronan merely shrugged. Adam could feel a deep, cold fury rising in him. Ice crusted the sword blades. The air temperature may have dropped a couple degrees as he responded. “Are you planning to explain?”

Ronan polished off his current beer before replying, “It’s going to happen eventually. Might as well get it over with.” The empty can was crushed in his fist, then joined the others below.

“That’s a conclusion, Ronan, not an argument.” Adam could have reestablished the Artic sea ice with this tone.

“I’m not writing a fucking term paper, Parrish. Don’t be so goddamn condescending.”

Adam’s hands tightened into fists. He wanted to hit something but there was nothing to hit but Ronan. Even mostly drunk and in the worst mood Ronan would only take the punch, accepting it as just. He would never return it, no matter what the provocation. This thought helped to steady Adam enough to speak.

“We’ve been together almost five years. If you’re sick of me, or you’re not in love with me anymore, fine. I’ll leave today. But you owe it to me to look me in the eye and say that,” Adam said, quiet and frigid and furious. Part of him had been waiting for this terrible moment from the first time Ronan had kissed him. Unworthy, unwanted.

For the first time since that morning, Ronan met his eyes, brandishing his most hostile stare. “That,” he said, then turned back to hurling acorns.

Adam’s pride was screaming at him to storm back to the house, pack his things, and go. Ronan may apologize, but he may also feed whatever was eating him forever. Ronan could be so fucking impossible it was a miracle Adam had tolerated it this long. It was always Adam who had to batter his way through Ronan’s impassible communication blockades. He reached for Cabeswater, but the sleepy press of leaves on his cheek felt too much like the tender sweep of Ronan’s fingers to provide any comfort. He pushed further to find the image of the tarot reading floating up, Maura’s voice warning, Don’t blind yourself. At the moment, he could not imagine how these cruel swords twisting inside him could be transformed to two cups. The memory of those cups, however, reminded him that just about every truly joyful moment in the last five years had been a direct result of Ronan and the home they shared together. If Ronan had been in danger, Adam would have obliterated his pride to save him without a second thought. Wasn’t Adam himself worth the same sacrifice? Wasn’t this home, this relationship worth any sacrifice?

Adam’s jaw was clenched, but he spoke through it. “Christ, Ronan. You speak three languages and you don’t know how to talk in any of them.”

Ronan opened his mouth, and the sneer was enough to inspire Adam to cut him off before he started.

“Do not Latin proverb me. What. Is. Your. Problem?”

A million words bubbled under Ronan’s skin, but all of them would expose his jugular. He managed to spit out, “Why do you even stay here?”

Adam sighed. “You don’t get to deflect with a question. Speak!”

Ronan despaired. He was already bleeding, he might as well start hemorrhaging. “You were the fucking Aglionby Academy valedictorian. You just graduated summa cum laude from fucking Princeton. You’re starting fucking law school in the fall. You worked your ass off for all of it. Why? To be stuck in fucking Henrietta, Virginia for the rest of your life? With your high school dropout boyfriend? Isn’t that a complete fucking waste?”

Everything clicked together in Adam’s mind. The swords became duller, a little malleable. He was beginning to see how they could be reshaped. His relief was so intense he felt he might fall off the roof. 

“So this is about what Mr. Gray said.”

“It’s about what I fucking said it was about,” Ronan snapped, waving the hand with the beer can in the air a little wildly. The lights swooped crazily and resettled.

“When I started at Aglionby, it was about control, about autonomy. It was about getting out of here on my own terms.”

“Exactly,” Ronan interrupted, “You’re going to go for good when you’re done, so-“

“Shut up and listen to me, shithead. I’m not done.”

Ronan grimaced, but he shut up.

“When we got together, when we stayed together, when I moved in here . . . everything changed. I’ll still never be your charity case. I intend to earn my keep and do something that matters to me. And, yes, I could do it without Princeton, but I like being the best. I like knowing all the options are open no matter what I choose. But this is my home. You and Opal and the Barns are my home. Without you, all the money and influence in the world doesn’t mean a goddamned thing. It’s empty.”

Ronan’s expression cracked. Something sad and vulnerable was exposed. Adam slid over next to him, disturbing the nut pile.

“I won’t be the thing that holds you back,” Ronan said. “I don’t want you waking up in a year, or five years, or twenty years, and feeling like you blew it because of me.”

Adam twined his fingers with Ronan’s. Ronan did not pull away. He leaned into Adam’s side ever so slightly. “I have been thinking about a career, you know,” Adam said. The cups were taking shape.

Ronan hunched in on himself. 

“I want to pursue justice.”

Ronan snorted. “How can you do that as a fucking lawyer? Might as well say you’re going to be a politician.”

“Ha, ha. Hilarious,” Adam replied warmly. He stroked Ronan’s thumb with his own.

“I’m thinking about working for the D.A. Representing victims who don’t have anyone else. People like I was as a kid.”

Ronan turned a deep, searching look on Adam. “You’d be great at that. But is it enough for you? To do that here? In this fucking backwater?”

Adam couldn’t keep a touch of bitterness from his voice. “It would matter more here. I’d rather give the best to people who have nothing than spend my life kissing ass to entitled, oblivious rich people. And if I stay here, I might be able to hand some of those Aglionby brats their asses, right in front of their daddies and their high end lawyers.”

Ronan’s expression blazed with a kind of fierce pride. “I think I love you even more than I did 12 hours ago.”

Adam laughed a little. “God, you’re the most impossible person in the world,” he said, bringing his hand up to caress the line of Ronan’s jaw. “Weren’t you just breaking up with me, you fucking sap?”

“I was being noble.”

“You were being an asshole,” Adam said fondly.

Adam sighed, dropped his hand, and laid his head on Ronan’s shoulder. “I guess I’ll never be wealthy.”

“That’s bullshit,” Ronan replied. “Everything I have is yours too. It has been for years. I’ve just been waiting to see how long it’ll take for you to accept it.”

Adam smiled a little, squeezing Ronan’s hand. “Is that your surreptitious way of proposing?” he asked, teasingly.

Ronan stiffened. 

“Ro, I was just ki-“

“Would you?” he asked with intensity, “Not right away or anything, but, at some point?”

Adam was silent for a moment. Wasn’t this, ultimately, at the heart of the conversation? Was he willing to tie his life to Ronan’s for the long term? Was it okay to stop tentatively expecting the end and start expecting a future, spinning out large and richly colored? “Probably,” he answered, feeling Ronan’s body finally relax, “but not until after law school. I’d lose eligibility for financial aid with your bank balance on my application.”

Ronan chuckled. “Always so fucking practical.”

“If you make an honest man out of me, I might just let you pay off my student loans,” Adam said genially.

“I already did.”

Adam’s head snapped up. “What?”

Ronan looked mildly amused. “You don’t password protect your computer. Your password list is in your My Documents folder. I was going to let you find out when your first payment was sent back, but this is almost as good.”

Adam just sat there with him mouth hanging open.

“Congratulations on your degree, fucker.”

Adam shook his head. “I think I’m going to have to be in charge of our finances. The way you blow money, we might have to rely on my meager salary.”

Ronan smiled brilliantly. When he wasn’t trying to look like an asshole, he looked remarkably handsome. Adam melted a little.

“You could do my taxes.”

“You file taxes?” Adam asked, aghast. The idea of Ronan doing something so mundane and law-abiding was shocking.

“I do run a business, Parrish. I sell livestock and produce. And I have income from the trusts,” Ronan said, sounding genuinely offended.

Adam gestured at the expanse of the Barns. “I thought this was more of an expensive hobby. Do you actually earn a profit? Do you have a CPA?” He was abruptly fascinated by the idea of Ronan Lynch, business owner, crunching numbers with some bizarre dream concocted old-fashioned adding machine at the kitchen table.

Ronan looked pained. “Some douche-bag Declan hired. I don’t like him.”

“Of course you don’t.”

“And I can’t trust a CPA if we’re getting into the magical artifact business.”

“Are we doing that?”

Ronan pulled Adam’s hand up to his mouth, moving his knuckles against his lips absently. “I think . . .Mr. Gray can be trusted.”

Adam was nodding, though his focus was a little blurry. Part of him was thinking about other things he’d like Ronan to do with his mouth. “He couldn’t come to the Barns at all,” Adam added. “I don’t want this place being connected to that stuff again.”

“And we’ll probably need to think about creative security,” Ronan rumbled.

Adam made a noise of agreement. Exhaustion swamped him. Ronan was starting to sag.

“Well,” Adam said, “we’ve covered long term relationship, financial, and tax planning this morning. I feel like I’ve earned a nap.” 

“Good. All this fucking tax talk is boring the shit out of me.”

Adam nudged him with his shoulder. “You look like you’re going to pass out in the next 15 minutes. I’d prefer if you’d do it in bed with me than up here. I like you with all your limbs in functioning order.”

Something lascivious surfaced on Ronan’s face. “I can think of something better to do in bed with you.”

Adam began climbing down. He kept a careful eye on Ronan’s less than steady descent.

“Not while you smell like a cross between a bar and a cow’s ass. You better shower before you come anywhere near our bed.”

“You could join me,” Ronan teased.

Adam shook his head. “I’ll wait up for you, but you can scour that stench off on your own.”

Still, he took Ronan’s hand and kept it clasped in his all the way to the house. Two of Cups.


	19. 8 Years - Flashcards

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adam and Ronan get caught in a compromising position at Opal's graduation party. Adam learns some Gaelic.

The house was in a state of chaos.  Outside, it was windy and spitting rain.  The parking area was an overflowing jumble of cars, trucks, and campers.  The "Congratulations!" banner had come half unmoored from the front porch and was whipping triumphantly in each gust.  As the outside was atypically inhospitable, the inside was a jostling, rowdy mess.

It was a dual celebration, Adam was a law school graduate, and Opal had earned her GED.  The guest list included the usual suspects and their significant others.  Blue and Gansey were there, of course, and Henry with his girlfriend du jour (his significant others, male or female, were rarely significant for long).  Calla was present, as were Maura and Mr. Gray. Declan and his wife Sarah had brought their infant son, and Matthew had his bubbly girlfriend Emma with him.

Party aside, everyone was also getting things together for the following day's start to the week-long camping trip Opal had requested to celebrate. There were suitcases and outdoor gear and various personal items in every corner and crevice.  Opal and two of her friends from the home school program kept thundering up and down the stairs.

Dinner and cake were both served accompanied by a noise level that had Adam's head throbbing.  When demands came to see and gush over Opal's certificate, Adam was glad to volunteer to retrieve it.  He slipped away from the crowd nearly unnoticed.  Ronan was in the middle of a pretty offensive dirty joke that already had Henry and Matthew giggling.  Adam hoped Opal's friends were out of earshot.

The office was tucked in the back corner of the house, up a totally unnecessary short set of stairs.  It was blissfully unoccupied.  Rather than grabbing the envelope and hurrying back, he quietly closed the door and sank into the desk chair.  Thank God they'd be outside for the next few days.  The idea of being stuck indoors with all of them for a week made him shudder.  Was it necessary for each one to be so damn loud?

He stopped trying to ignore his headache and leaned into the sensation, letting his pulse sync itself to the ley line, reaching for the damp green peace of Cabeswater.  His mind briefly wandered the dark leaf-littered paths.  He came back to himself to find the headache gone, swallowed by the living night.

Turning to the desk, he reached for the cardboard envelope containing Opal's triumph.  His own cardboard envelope had not yet arrived, but there were two on the table.  The top was addressed, as expected, to Ms. Opal Lynch.  The second was addressed to one Mr. Ronan Lynch.

Intrigued, Adam pulled out the paper.

Commonwealth of Virginia  
General Educational Development  
certificate awarded to Ronan Lynch

Adam laughed out loud.  Opal, clever thing, must have guilt tripped or dared him into it while he was helping her study.  He was sorely tempted to show it off with Opal's, but thought he should save it for a time when it wouldn't take attention from her.  Ronan would be teased mercilessly by Blue and Henry for weeks once this was revealed.

The door opened to stealthily admit Ronan, who closed it again immediately.

"What are you fucking cackling about in here?  Everyone's asking where the hell you went."

Adam held up the envelope.  Ronan scowled.

"How did she get you to do it?"

Ronan came over to lean against the desk, arms crossed.  "You know how she gets when she wants something.  Fucking relentless.    Needled and nagged and provoked every fucking minute until I caved."

"Reminds me of someone," Adam said, grinning.

Ronan huffed, but Adam could tell he was proud of her mastery of Lynch tactics.

"Did you take the test the same day she did?"

"Yes, and I felt old and like a fucking dumbshit at the same time, taking a test with a bunch of kids."

Adam laughed softly.  "I'm sure half the girls in there were so distracted by your animal magnetism they flunked."

Ronan couldn't keep the pleased expression of his face.  "Never caused _you_ any problems in school."

Adam stood, placing himself in front of Ronan.  He hooked his fingers into Ronan's belt loops.  "All I ever saw you do was piss and moan about how much you hated it.  Maybe if you'd been highlighting your textbook or making flashcards, I would have been swooning over you."

Ronan lifted a disdainful eyebrow.  He moved away from Adam to plop down in the vacated desk chair. From the bottom right drawer of the desk, he pulled a weighty GED prep book and a pile of flashcards, plunking them down on the tabletop.

"Those are probably Opal's," Adam said, but he had to admit the image of Ronan poring over these materials was a little charming.

Ronan spun around in the chair to face Adam, fanning out a handful of flashcards.  The handwriting was undeniably Ronan's.  There was a rather creative swear word at the top of one he had apparently used as a pneumonic device.  Even with the obnoxious knowing smirk on his face, Adam found him a little irresistible.

"What's everyone doing?" Adam asked casually, gravitating slowly closer to Ronan's outstretched legs.

"They were about to start fucking around with Mario Kart."

He grabbed Adam's pant leg to pull him closer.  Adam sat on Ronan's lap, crossing his arms behind Ronan's head.  His expression remained skeptical.

"Shall I recite the periodic table of elements?" Ronan asked, only half sarcastic, batting his eyelashes.

Adam narrowed his eyes.  "Only if you know the atomic numbers."

Ronan kissed him chastely, then whispered against his lips, "Hydrogen, 1."

Adam kissed Ronan a little less chastely.  "Everyone knows hydrogen," he said, "Amaze me."

Ronan nipped Adam's lower lip.  "Silicon, 14."

Adam rewarded him more fully.  The flashcards ended up scattered on the floor beneath them.  Soon enough, Adam's shirt was fully unbuttoned, and Ronan's tee was hanging off one arm.  Ronan was reciting inert gasses as if they were epithets while he opened Adam's fly.

The door flew open, Declan's voice saying "Ronan?  Where are the - Holy mother of fuck!"

The door slammed shut.  Adam and Ronan were both frozen, unsure how to react.  The door whipped open again.

"Wait - are you guys fucking on a pile of flash cards?"

Ronan glanced at the floor, then looked over Adam's shoulder directly at his brother.  "Yes - Adam gets off on academia.  Go figure. Now get the fuck out."

Adam made an attempt to jump out of Ronan's lap, but Ronan held him down by the fabric of his pants.  Declan was bent too far over the door handle laughing to notice.

"Ronan," Adam growled, his face and ears red.

"What's going on back there?" yelled Blue.

"Ronan and Adam are doing it in a pile of flashcards!" shouted Declan.

"Points for originality, Adam!" yelled Henry.

"That's totally nerdy, Adam!" bellowed Blue.

"Jesus Christ, my friends are here!" screeched Opal.

"For the love of God," moaned Calla.

"I hate all of you!" hollered Adam.  He was including Ronan, who would not let him up.

"Next time lock the door, you kinky shits," Declan said, still sniggering, closing the door behind him.

Adam bent his burning face to the top of Ronan's head.  "Your brother is an asshole."

"Finally!" crowed Ronan, delighted.  "Let's put a rotten egg in his car!"

Adam got off his lap.  He refastened his pants and got to work on his shirt buttons.  Ronan let the t-shirt drop onto the desk. He came up behind Adam, putting his arms around him and effectively immobilizing him.

"Everyone already knows what we're doing.  We might as well finish," said Ronan in his right ear.

Adam stiffened.  "You must be joking.  I am going to be getting shit from all of these assholes every second for a solid week.  A couple 17 year old girls are going home to tell all their friends about how Opal's dads got caught having sex during her graduation party.  I will never get into it in this room with you again."

"Never is a long time," Ronan said, nibbling Adam's earlobe.

"We're done here," Adam said.

Ronan let him go with a sigh.  "An té nach bhfuil láidir ní folair dó a bheith glic."

Adam paused his angry buttoning.  "Was that Gaelic?"

Ronan just stood there, looking superior.

"What does it mean?" Adam asked, unable to help himself.

"I'm not going to tell you.  You'll have to remember it phonetically, figure out the spelling, then look it up."

Adam closed his eyes and gritted his teeth.  They were leaving in the morning - no access to wifi for a full week.  He'd seen Gaelic phrases written.  He knew the spelling bore little resemblance to the sounds.  Ronan had only said it once.  Adam didn't care - it was a single obscure phrase.

But . . . Ronan loved to make pithy, nuanced comments in other languages.  It was probably pretty clever.  The combination of rewarding and withholding it might take to get Ronan to give ground was . . . interesting.  He was not anxious to get back to the party to listen to his friends take the piss out of him for the rest of the night.  Ronan said it again, taunting.

Adam dropped his hands to his sides, defeated.  "Lock the door," he said.

Ronan did.

***

Forest places always grounded Adam.  He strolled down a meandering path away from the busy camp site, glad to be alone.  Mostly.  Opal was the perfect person to walk a trail with.  She always noticed something Adam would never see on his own.  But she was fully engaged in being doted on by everyone else.  He wished they hadn't made it such a crowded trip.  Opal would only be returning home with them briefly afterward.  In a few weeks, she would leave for California with Blue, Gansey, and Henry, nominally to intern for their fledgling Tree Light Foundation.

The Foundation was presented to the public and potential donors as a forest habitat preservation non-profit.  Its real purpose was to seek out _tire e e’lintes_ and other places like Cabeswater.  They would use a team of scientists to legally legitimize protecting any remaining tree lights.  They had also recruited a couple reputable psychics to help find the ley lines.

In these other forests, there would be no Greywaren to command them, no magician to balance them.  They needed Opal to guide them, talking with the _tire e e’lintes_.  Opal would also be teaching Blue the language of her heritage.  Opal doubted Gansey or Henry could learn it. Adam had failed spectacularly, and even Ronan could only use scraps.

Their little dream had grown too much to be kept any longer in the limited world of the Barns.  Adam thought sadly about how much tamer their lives would be without her constant presence.  Ronan was going to reach another spectrum of impossible the more he missed her.  Adam and Ronan would need to rebalance themselves completely without Opal.

The tree line thinned out to reveal a broad, slow-moving swathe of river.  Not far from him, Sarah stood comfortably on the bank, fishing. Her son slumbered peacefully in a basket nearby.  She turned immediately to him, bestowing her dazzling smile. The story was Declan had fallen in love with her at first sight. He'd pursued her for six solid months before she'd agreed to the first date. Looking at her now, limned in the golden afternoon light, comfortable and radiating joy, Adam could believe it.

"Hello, Adam!" She said with a cheerful wave.  "Would you like a reel?"

Another pole lay abandoned beside the jumble of gear.

"Isn't Declan using it?"

She laughed, a lovely musical thing.  "He hates fishing.  Too quiet. He's a social creature - already snuck off to annoy your Ronan. His favorite entertainment."

Adam could not help but return a smile to her. He walked up next to her, careful to keep quiet as he got close to the slumbering baby. "I'm not much for fishing."

"Ah.  Getting some peace and quiet away from that lot?" she asked.

Adam nodded, looking over the water, absorbing the green and yellow vista.

"Me too.  Jesus Mary, are they always so boisterous?"

Adam chuckled.  "Pretty much."  He gestured to the rod she held so naturally.  "Did you fish as a kid?"

"Oh, yes!" She said warmly.  "My da would always take me fishing on holiday."

Her lilting accent reminded Adam she had grown up in Ireland.  "Do you speak Gaelic?"

She laughed again, surprised.  "I do, it happens.  It's not a question people ask me much," Sarah said, eyeing him with interest.

Adam kept his gaze on the water.  "I...um...heard a phrase, but I can't figure out how to spell it, so I can't look it up."

"Why not ask Ronan or Declan?  They know it."

Adam shrugged.  "Declan likes to mess with me, so I couldn't believe what he told me."

Sarah noted Ronan was not mentioned.  She grinned again.  "And what did your beloved say to you in a language he knows you don't understand?"

Adam flushed, less at the beloved part and more because recalling the sound of the words meant remembering the context in which they were spoken - breathy, passionate, unguarded, preceded by his name like an exultation, Ronan's bright blue gaze fathomless with mingled love and desire.  _Adam, a rún mo chroí._

"Um," he stalled, "maybe I should go back to trying to look it up."

"Oh, go on.  I'm married to his brother.  We're practically family."

Adam wasn't totally comfortable, but he was desperately curious and Declan would probably bullshit him.

"Uhroon mcKree, I think."

"Ugh.  Your accent is atrocious," she scolded.

"He only said it a couple times," Adam said a little defensively.

"I can guess when," she said coyly.

Adam was suddenly worried it was something outrageously dirty, given what he'd been doing when Ronan said it.

"A rún mo chroí," she said, "is literally _you're the secret of my heart_."

Adam frowned. This felt a tad anticlimactic.  The delivery had suggested something a little less...obscure.  There was a distinctive tug on Sarah's line.

"Christ on a bike!" She exclaimed, "I finally got one!"

At her outburst, the baby startled and began to wail.  She cast a pleading look at Adam.  "Could you grab him?  I want to pull this one in."

He reached into the basket and extracted the delicate creature.  With exquisite care, he settled the little one on his shoulder, rubbing his back with one slender hand, turning to allow the boy to observe his mother competently pulling in a good-sized trout.  William settled quickly, taking in the scene with bright eyes.

"Ha!" She said, holding the fish by the gills, "Have a look at that, my wee lad.  Good, isn't it?"

The wee lad drooled on Adam's shirt. As she went about the business of putting her fish in the cooler and tidying up her supplies, she continued as if there had been no interruption, "So, a rún mo chroí translates to _secret of my heart_ , but in English, the meaning is more like _deepest desire of my heart_ or _love of my life_.  Quite romantic."

Adam was glad she wasn't looking at him and that he had something to do with his hands.  That was very intimate indeed - exactly the sort of thing Ronan would say to him both deeply earnest and in a language he wouldn't understand.

Sarah wiped fishy hands on her jeans and collected the infant.

"Do you need help getting this stuff back?" Adam asked.

"Yes," she said, "as my lazy husband is nowhere to be found."

Adam efficiently packed everything up and hefted it to carry back, leaving Sarah with just the infant.

"So," she asked as they walked, "will you be marrying him then?"

"Yes," Adam answered without hesitation.

"Well that was easy," she said with humor.  "Have you already asked him?"

"We talked about it a few years ago."

Sarah laughed.  "Why have you made the poor boy wait so long?  He's a patient one, your Ronan."

Adam smiled ruefully.  No one would normally ascribe this quality to Ronan, but it was true.  From the moment he'd set his heart on Adam, he'd opened every door and window in his life, unselfconsciously giving everything, while Adam crept cautiously closer over time, waiting to be shut out or forbidden. He recalled the conversation on the roof years before: _everything I have is yours too.  It has been for years.  I’ve just been waiting to see how long it’ll take for you to accept it._   Adam thought he had. That day, he had been transformed from a long term guest to a permanent resident in Ronan's life. In the ensuing years, he'd become involved in every aspect of both the farm and dreaming businesses.  Their lives no longer contained mine and yours, levels or boundaries.  Everything was we and ours.  It had become easy, comfortable, without him noticing. 

"I'm an idiot," he answered Sarah.  It hadn't failed yet - he would certainly spend each year of his life realizing how stupid he had been the year before.

She nudged him with a shoulder.  He stumbled a little under the weight of all her gear.

"Those Lynch boys will do it to you.  You think you know where you're headed, what you want.  They'll spin you about and sweep you along with them, and you can’t remember why you were going another way to begin with."

Adam laughed.  "I didn't realize they were that alike," he said, thinking how annoyed this would make both of them.  "I don't think my original path would have been as satisfying."

"What joy in life, without rún mo chroí?"

"Not much," agreed Adam. He found he liked the idea of this woman as a sister.


	20. 8 Years - The Wedding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> By popular demand, the wedding.
> 
> "Do you want to get married? I mean, to me, not just in general," Adam clarified with a wry grin.  
> Ronan stared at him for a second then looked around wildly. "Is fucking Robobee around here? Am I on Cheng's candid fucking camera? Or is this a real question that you're asking me, while I'm eating a fucking chili dog? When it's hot as balls and I'm probably about to pass out from heat stroke?"

Adam knew he had to be the one to bring it up - he was the one who put it off in the first place. He almost said something the minute he got back to the campsite with Sarah, but Matthew was organizing a football game and everybody was chattering and he really didn't want everyone hassling him about it.  He nearly said something that night, but Ronan had challenged him not to make any noise no matter what the provocation, which resulted in him nearly biting off his own tongue because it was cruelty to expect silence when Ronan was doing that with his mouth and that other thing with both hands at the same time.  He forgot about it completely when it was his turn to challenge Ronan, who made the most marvelously humiliating squawk it almost made up for the flashcard incident.  Slipping into a very satisfied sleep, Adam decided it could wait until they got home.

He pondered making it into some grand, romantic gesture, but Adam was sort of shit at romance and Ronan was sort of shit at being romanced.  Romance, for them, was a subtle, subtextual art form that did not lend itself to marriage proposals.  It was a gift chucked down the stairwell with a "Heads up!"  It was a clever distraction from a crappy day.  It was being understood without having to stumble through explanations.

After a week of aborted attempts and half-planned scenarios, Adam figured he'd just blurt it out at the first opportunity.  It would be something of a loving tribute to Ronan's personal communication style.

That opportunity turned out to be a brutally humid afternoon in D.C.  They had met up with Matthew at a park where he played impromptu soccer games with anyone kicking a ball around.  Opal sat beside Matthew on a concrete bench, while Adam waited for Ronan, who was buying sodas and chili dogs, on another.

Ronan handed of the first two hot dogs to Opal and Matthew, who wolfed them down competitively as soon as Ronan's back was turned.  Though her mouth was smaller, Opal prevailed, probably because she ate the wrapper as well.  When Ronan turned back, Opal and Matthew both looked at him so pitifully, he wordlessly handed over the second set of hot dogs with an exaggerated sigh.

Adam felt a sudden, overwhelming swell of adoration for him.  When Ronan finally plunked down next to him, grumbling curses, Adam's sappy sentiments must have been showing because Ronan frowned at him, contemplative, and barked "What?" before taking a bite of chili dog.

"You still want to get married?" Adam asked.

All three Lynches present choked and sputtered.  Adam felt absurdly proud to have selected his moment so well.

"What?" Ronan asked again, still gasping.

"Do you want to get married?  I mean, to me, not just in general," Adam clarified with a wry grin.

Ronan stared at him for a second then looked around wildly.  "Is fucking Robobee around here?  Am I on Cheng's candid fucking camera?  Or is this a real question that you're asking me, while I'm eating a fucking chili dog?  When it's hot as balls and I'm probably about to pass out from heat stroke?"

Adam's brow furrowed.  "You think I'm bullshitting you?"

"Are you?"  Ronan asked.

Adam set down his food, knelt on the cement, and yanked Ronan's unoccupied hand into his.  It was sweaty and Ronan looked ready to bolt.  Adam couldn't entirely keep his smug amusement down.

"Ronan Niall Lynch, will you marry me?"

Matthew and Opal were clutching each other, beaming.  A little "squee" was escaping Opal, but the only just.  Ronan flushed as pink as Adam had ever seen him.

"Jesus, yes, now get the fuck up," Ronan snapped, snatching back his hand. 

Adam was not able to get back up before they were both tackled in enthusiastic hugs.

"I call best man!" Shouted Matthew.

"Ugh," Ronan said, "it's not like calling shotgun, Matthew."

"Whatever, it's gonna be me, though, right pal?"

"Yes!" Ronan howled, "Now get off!"

Matthew immediately took out his phone and took consultation from Opal on the content of the gossipy group text he was preparing.

Ronan glared at Adam.  "You are the fucking worst, Adam Parrish."

Adam smiled with pure delight.  "But you said yes anyway."

Ronan huffed, hunching up his shoulders. "Just remember who asked first," he muttered.

***

Ronan Lynch, professional dreamer, did not restrict all his dreaming to slumber.  He often spun complex, detailed daydreams as he worked at the Barns or drove.  It could be very satisfying to manifest his daydreams through means ordinary rather than magical, especially when they involved Adam.

Being married to Adam, having that admittedly traditional commitment, had been high on the list of Ronan's fervent desires for a long time.  Autonomy being at the core of Adam's Adamness however, Ronan was not entirely sure it would ever happen.  He'd had plenty of daydreams about their life together, and the last couple years had been nicely molding themselves into the general shape of his fantasy existence.  As a result, the literal matrimony had retreated to the back of his mind. 

It was only the day after Adam's proposal - God, that man was absolutely fucking shit with romance - Ronan realized he had never considered the event itself, not in any kind of detail, anyway.  They both wanted to do it before Opal left (that was non-negotiable) but other than that - nothing.

"I guess I just assumed you'd already have it all figured out," Adam said, genuinely surprised.

Ronan threw his hands in the air, exasperated.  "In 24 fucking hours?   I'm not a goddamn event planner, asshole."

Adam smirked.  "You proposed 3 years ago, as you reminded me yesterday."

"You said probably!" Ronan retorted, "And you never brought it up again."

"Neither did you," Adam replied hotly, "But I assumed you had at least thought about it."

"I have a fucking life, Adam.  I don't spend every second mooning over your 'probably.'"

Adam crossed his arms and glared at Ronan.  "This?  Right here," he said, "Feels like we're already married.  The legal status is just a formality."

"If it's 'a formality,' I'll just dream up a fucking certificate and be done.  Skip the whole fucking thing.  Same difference, right?" Ronan hissed, sharp with hurt.

Even two years ago, Adam would have called his bluff, channeling his own wounded pride into a deadly projectile.  Now, his posture softened and he melted into Ronan's space, hands at Ronan's waist, nudging the uncompromising line of Ronan's nose with his own. Ronan's anger was already diffusing and it was completely unfair that Adam could do it so easily.

"That was a shitty thing to say, and I didn't mean it," Adam said quietly.  "I want to marry you, for real, not by dream cheat.  You're the most important thing in my life."

Ronan kissed the tip of Adam's nose and opened his arms to wrap him up in them.

"You're a totally exhausting, obnoxious pain in my ass," Ronan said, "and you do not have a single drop of romance in your blood."

Adam stiffened and moved as if he was going to escape, but Ronan held him hard.  "Lucky for you, I love you anyway."

Adam made an irritated huff through his nose.  He pushed himself away from Ronan, just enough to look him in the eye.

"Look," Adam said, "all I want from this is you and me.  I'd like Opal to be there.  I'm not a big fan of giant parties and neither are you, so probably not a Gansey affair."

"Definitely not a fucking Gansey affair," Ronan agreed.

"But," Adam said decisively, "there's no one on this earth I'd be embarrassed to tell that I love you and I'm committed to you."

Ronan's knees went a little wobbly.  He had always vaguely thought of weddings as big formal affairs, but he was not at all sure he wanted anyone to witness him oozing into a pile of custard like he was doing right now.  And big parties really were kind of horrible.  He despised small talk and neckties.

"I'll think about it.  Give me a couple days," Ronan said.

Adam smiled as if he knew something Ronan didn't, then kissed him like Ronan's mouth was the only thing he ever thought about.

Ronan pondered it for a week.  Non-stop.  Every scenario he concocted felt false.  Every vision contained some raw vulnerability he could not imagine exposing to a bunch of onlookers. It was two in the morning when he finally flung himself into bed, jostling Adam awake.

"Hmm?" Adam asked sleepily, well aware that the jostling was intentional.

"Let's do the courthouse.  Just the three of us.  We'll do something at the house and tell everybody later," Ronan said, sounding almost as exhausted as he felt.

Adam shifted into Ronan's side, head on his shoulder, arm over his stomach.

"Is that enough?" Adam asked softly.

"I just want you," Ronan said into his hair.  "No bullshit, nothing fake.  Just you."

"Okay," Adam said, settling back into sleep long before Ronan could get there.

***

"Are you sure this is what you want?  We can still do a bigger thing with everybody," Adam mumbled into the back of Ronan's neck the night before the wedding.

"Having second thoughts, Parrish?" Ronan asked.  His tone was teasing, but he knew Adam could read the anxiety behind it in the taught stillness of his body.

Adam pressed himself closer until there was no space at all between them.  He trailed his nose along the line between Ronan's neck and shoulder, precisely where an inky feather lay, carefully applying his teeth to the short hairs Ronan's nape.

"No," he breathed, "but I want you to have everything you want."

Ronan pulled Adam's palm from his stomach to his mouth, planting delicate kisses into it.

"You're everything I want," he said.  "And our friends are a bunch of interfering assholes.  If we did a bigger thing, Blue and Helen would hijack the whole fucking deal.  Weird flower arrangements and two hundred people we've never fucking met."

Adam chuckled and shifted his hips suggestively.  "A battle between Blue and Helen could be entertaining.  Would give us an excuse to be dramatic and elope."

Two of Adam's fingers found their way between Ronan’s lips.  "You just described Gansey's wedding," Ronan said around fingertips.

"If you keep doing that with your mouth, you're not going to be able to wear white tomorrow," Adam growled.

Ronan snorted with disdain.  "As if I would ever wear white," he said, and he rolled over to show Adam the other things he planned to do with his mouth.

***

When they arrived, Declan and Matthew were already leaning against the wall of the courthouse, near the door, with suspiciously perfect timing.  Ronan did not believe in coincidences.  He scowled malevolently at Opal, who ignored him and waved at Matthew.

"Hello, little brother," said Declan, cool and casual, "what brings you to court today?  Speeding ticket?  Assault charge?"

Ronan glowered in aggressive silence.

"No, can't be that," Declan continued, "You're not on the schedule.  Hmmmm.  What.  Could.  It.  Be?" Declan tapped his chin theatrically.

"I thought I was gonna be your best man," Matthew interjected forlornly.

Ronan frowned.  That one stung a little.  He was expecting Adam to come in on the defense, but the fucker kept responding to Gansey's endless barrage of text messages, like he had been for the last 30 minutes.

"We were going to tell everybody in a couple weeks.  No big deal," Ronan said lamely, punctured by Matthew's puppy-dog eyes.

"No big deal?" Declan asked, flawlessly wounded and disappointed, stepping closer to Ronan.  "We're your brothers, Ronan.  You didn't think we'd want to be here?"

A truly magnificent eye roll was Ronan's response.  "Well, you're fucking here now, so you might as well come in.  Will that satisfy you?"

Matthew and Declan just shook their heads sadly, as well choreographed as a ballet.

"For fuck's sake, Dec," Adam sighed, finally tucking the phone away, "Laying it on a little thick, aren't you?"

Declan pressed a hand to his heart in dismay and took another step closer.  Ronan's senses went on high alert.  He subtly shifted his feet into a fighting stance.

"If I was _Gansey_ , I'd nobly wish you well and cry into my pillow later," Declan said, "but I'm a Lynch, so-"

Quick as a snake, Declan snatched Ronan into a headlock.  Ronan only landed one punch to Declan's torso before Matthew dug into his pocket, found his keys, and darted into the parking lot with Declan immediately behind.

"Did your brothers just mug you on your wedding day?" Adam asked, expression perfectly blank - his emotion-hiding mask.

"Are you just going to let those assholes steal your car?" Opal asked, indignant.

Rage coursed through Ronan's body.  "This is obviously your fault," he snapped at her.  "I'll deal with it after," he said through clenched teeth.

The hint of a grin ghosted across Adam's mouth until he glanced down at his hands.  All the amusement fell off his face.

"Um," Adam said, interrupted by the distinctive growl of the Corvette, followed by a tire squeal that made Ronan's insides curdle.  "I left the marriage license in the car."

Ronan closed his eyes.  With deadly calm, he asked, "You, Adam motherfucking Parrish, forgot paperwork?"

"Oh, don't even, Ronan.  Gansey was texting me every 15 seconds. I was distracted. Was I supposed to anticipate this?"  Adam snapped.

"Fuck!" yelled Ronan. 

He bolted for the parking lot, Adam and Opal on his heels.  A set of keys on the pavement near the empty parking space, probably tossed out the window, were the only evidence the Corvette had ever been there.  Adam plucked them up.

"Porsche?"  He said, glancing around.

Ronan pointed an aggressive finger at Matthew's bright red 911.  He yanked the keys from Adam's hand.  "Let's see what this piece of shit can do," he snarled as Adam and Opal clambered into the vehicle.

"Do you know where they're going?" Adam panted, already clutching the grab-handle over the window.

"I know every fucking place in and out of this town you can drive that car fast enough to make it worth stealing," Ronan said, hand white-knuckled on the gear shift.  "Those fuckers," he spit.

Adam pulled out his cell again.

"You better not be gossiping with fucking Gansey again, so help me-"

"I'm calling Henry," Adam said crisply.  "He's in town and Robobee might be able to help."

Opal whooped and Adam smacked his head against the window as they took a corner far too fast.  Robobee was indeed helpful, hacking into traffic cameras and pointing them in the right direction.  By the time they caught sight of the Corvette, it was speeding out of town like a rocket.  Ronan saw the momentum of the car jerk briefly as it accelerated.  His blood boiled.

"Watch my transmission, asshole!" he screamed even though they couldn't hear him.  "I think _Matthew_ is driving," Ronan added, aghast.

Ronan was fiercely loyal to his dream machine, but he grudgingly admitted to himself that the Porsche was pretty fun to drive.  It was lighter and more compact than the 'Vette, so it cornered better at speed.  There was something uniquely invigorating about a race, even if he had no idea where the finish line was.  He couldn't pass or quite catch the Corvette, but he wasn't that far behind.

There was a terrifying moment of nearly smacking his car's bumper after he followed a quick turn into a narrow winding lane taking them off the main mountain highway.  The destination soon became apparent.

They pulled up to a worn but well-kept Victorian buried out in the woods.  The Corvette parked alongside a familiar orange Camaro.  Several other expensive vehicles littered the drive.  Matthew and Declan jumped out and ran around to the back of the house.

Ronan slammed the car door and looked over at Adam, climbing out more sedately, not even bothering to appear surprised.  Opal also ran behind the house as soon as she could wriggle out of the back.

"So, Parrish, was your whole little speech about big parties a bunch of bullshit?  Because that looks a hell of a lot like more than one Gansey is here."

Adam was grinning smugly.  "No, Lynch, but I believe _someone_ accused me of being _incapable_ of romance."

Ronan was trying not to smile back, because the one that threatened to emerge was a real Matthew number, all sweet and sincere.  Manipulating him into a high-speed car chase to a surprise wedding was pretty fucking romantic, as far as he was concerned.

Adam raised his eyebrows and held out a hand.  "Still planning to tie the knot today?" he asked.

Ronan tangled his fingers into Adam's.  "Fine, shithead.  Let's see what you've masterminded."

The house didn't really have a defined yard.  It was whimsically perched in something of a forest clearing.  Beyond the house, a long, straight aisle of trees with arching branches reaching out to cling to one another like linked fingers suggested the nave of a church. Yellow, purple and white wildflowers in the grass served as floral arrangements.  The only attendees were their families, born and made.  Deep into the arbor aisle, Declan and Gansey stood on one side of a gently smiling minister, Blue and Matthew on the other.  The residents of Fox Way, Dean Gray, Opal, the Ganseys, Henry Cheng, Declan's family and Matthew's girlfriend were all arrayed casually on mismatched picnic blankets in the grass.  Bird song and fulsome leaf rustle provided tuneful accompaniment.  It was simpler and more comfortable and more absolutely truthful than anything Ronan had managed to imagine on his own.  No element of dream magic enhanced any part of it.  The setting was as real and uncontrived as Adam's Henrietta accent when he didn't bother to hide it. 

"How'd I do?" Adam asked, and Ronan was probably the only person who heard the touch of nervous tremor. 

Ronan knew if he opened his mouth in that second he'd cry.  He settled for gazing deeply into Adam's blue, blue eyes, a place where he had lost himself at 17 and would happily stay forever stranded.  His hand gripped Adam's tightly and tugged him toward the minister.

As they passed by Opal, she said, "Qui amant ipsi sibi somnia fingunt," and it sounded like a promise delivered from Cabeswater.

Ronan heard a distinctly Gansey-like sniffle and absolutely refused to look at him.  The only thing he wanted to look at was Adam, anyway, words and forest whispers and dappled light highlighting him at the center of Ronan's universe.

***

The ensuing celebration was not much different from any family party at the Barns or Monmouth or Fox Way.  Everybody laughed and talked over and at and around each other.  Food was prepared on the grill and in the house's kitchen by a motley variety of people. A digital camera was passed around from hand to hand.  Some pictures were of people, some were of interesting leaves, some were obscured by fingers across part of the lens.  Most were in focus. 

A cake was brought out for traditional cake cutting.  Adam smashed the first piece in Ronan's face.  Ronan took a handful and rubbed it into Adam's hair.  After they demolished the entire thing in a scuffling battle, another appeared for actual consumption.  Calla collected fifty dollars for her accurate prediction that a second one would be needed.

"I think I have cake in my ear," Adam said, scraping his finger carefully inside the shell of the left one, about an hour later.

"I've got it up my fucking nose, thanks to you," Ronan replied.

Adam grinned and ruffled a hand across Ronan's head, releasing a shower of dried frosting dandruff.  "I'm gonna go upstairs to clean up a little," Adam let the end of the statement trail up like a question.

Ronan caught the thread of suggestion, jerking his chin toward the general vicinity of the staircase.

Once in the empty upstairs hallway, Adam slipped both arms around his waist and proceeded to remove the lingering sugar from Ronan's skin with his tongue.  The soft stupid smile that had been flitting over Ronan's face all day fixed itself in place as his eyes fluttered closed and his fingers carded through Adam's frosting-stiff hair.  Ronan's thumbs pressed up on the underside of Adam's jaw until his face was titled up far enough to receive a shower of reverent kisses.

They did not notice the creaking of the stairs, but did reluctantly break their mouths apart at Blue's rude, exasperated noise.

"Nobody asked you to watch, Sargent," Ronan said, not looking away from Adam.

"There are five goddamned bedrooms in this house.  Do your consummating somewhere other than the hallway if you don't want an audience," she said.

Ronan reached for the door handle directly behind Adam, herded him inside, and slammed the door in Blue's face, immediately snicking the lock.

"Hey," she called, pounding on the other side, "I'm sleeping in that one tonight!  Go defile Henry's!"

"Tough shit, maggot!" Ronan yelled back.

Another thump that was probably a kick to the door represented the last of her opposition.  Adam tugged Ronan toward the adjoining bathroom, but Ronan shook his head.  He pushed Adam firmly enough to make him stumble backward onto the bed.

"C'mon, Ro, I'm all sticky," Adam said with a laugh.

A scatter of crumbs hit the floor as Ronan shucked off his shirt.  "Not sticky enough," he said, throwing himself onto the bed on top of Adam.

"Gross," Adam replied even as he began wriggling out of his own clothes, crushing dessert detritus into the clean bedspread.

After defiling both the bed and the shower, they shook out their still cakey clothes and pulled them on.  Ronan wrinkled his nose at the sour milk smell coming off his collar.

"I think it's time to bail on this party," he said.  "I need to change."

Adam, peering intently out the window, did not respond.

"Hello?  Adam? Anyone home?"

Adam pressed his face to the glass, eyes going wide.  Ronan strode over.  The view was mostly of the woods surrounding the house, but off to the left, the driveway containing all the cars was visible.  Two runty girls and one offensively tall one in platform heels were finishing a hideous act of vandalism.  All over Ronan's beloved car, they had painted hearts and flowers and written "just married" with those shitty car markers.  It was so appalling it rendered him momentarily speechless.  Adam turned to look at him, true dismay writ on his face, but Ronan's gaze was fixed on the atrocity outside.

"This means fucking war," he whispered, turning to stomp down the stairs in outrage.

Adam grabbed his arm.  "Wait," he said, "I have an idea."

Adam picked up a lumpy purse from the floor and dumped its contents onto the rumpled bed.  He sifted through tissues and pens and various other girl garbage until he came up with a set of keys.  Ronan grinned wickedly, snatching the keys to the engineless dream Pig out from Adam's fingers.

"Let's go, Parrish!"

Adam had opened the other window and was peering around the side of the house.  "If we go out the front," he was mumbling, "they'll know we're taking it."

"So?  It's not like the fucking thing starts up quiet."

Adam was shaking his head.  "Blue will jump on the hood before she lets us steal her car right in front of her face. We need stealth, Lynch."

Ronan frowned with distaste but couldn't necessarily disagree.  Adam cracked the bedroom door open to peek into the hallway.  He motioned Ronan to follow him with an elegant hand movement.  That ridiculous, gooey smile was surfacing again, Ronan could feel it.  He bit the inside of his cheek to keep it at bay.

They crept over to a bedroom across the hall, then out the window onto the roof of the covered porch.  From there, it was an easy leap to the ground at the deserted back corner of the house and a trek through the encroaching woods to the parking area.

The Pig was in their sights.  Luckily, it wasn't blocked in by any other car.  Adam crept into the driver's side, popped it into neutral, and signaled Ronan to push.  Once it got a little momentum going down the drive, Ronan hopped in.  The car roared to life, sound mingling with Ronan and Adam's wild laughter.

Both phones started buzzing furiously as they were turning onto the main highway.  Ronan tossed them carelessly into the back seat and planted his boots up on the dashboard.  "Where we headed?  Home?" Ronan asked.

"Pshaw," replied Adam, "We just stole a car that doesn't need gas.  I think we should just drive for a while, see where the road takes us."

Ronan nodded his approval as Adam hit the accelerator a little harder than was necessary, and not nearly as hard as Ronan would have.  That damn thing was happening to Ronan's mouth again.  This time, he let it stay.  One of his hands tucked itself under Adam's on the gearshift.  Adam's thumb moved to gently turn the new ring on Ronan's finger.  Night chill raised goosebumps along Ronan's arm, but he didn't roll up the window.  No dream could possibly improve this moment.  He was never sleeping again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It took me a while to envision this properly, as the idea of Adam and Ronan voluntarily turning something like this into a fancy pants affair just doesn't jibe for me. Anyway, hope you liked it.
> 
> Latin translation: lovers construct their own dreams


	21. 8 Years - Music and Dirt Bikes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Opal's gone, the boys miss her. Adam is indoctrinated into the Lynch family. Adam figures out a new approach that will eventually lead to giving life to the dream without the dreamer.
> 
> Adam shrugged a backpack off his shoulders, reached in, and retrieved a set of bolt cutters, as if he carried them around all the fucking time, like some kind of burglar Boy Scout. Ronan's gasoline heart fired with furious anticipation. Adam smoothly cut the padlock. He casually tossed it into the brush before neatly putting away his bolt cutters.  
> "Who are you and what have you done with Parrish?" Ronan asked, awed.

Adam arrived home later than intended on Friday night.  He'd gone to visit Fox Way before hitting the grocery store and gotten caught up in an existential discussion with Calla and Maura.  Calla had gone so far as to tell him he wasn't completely useless, which left him feeling rather pleased with himself.  He was surprised to see Declan's car already in the parking area.

Declan, Sarah and Matthew were supposed to arrive Saturday morning to spend the weekend.  Though Declan had a busy life between work and his family, he and Matthew still made it a point to come to church at St. Agnes one Sunday a month.  Ronan went to D.C. once a month to return the favor.  Declan and Matthew usually stayed the whole weekend at the Barns.

A tad alarmed, he wondered what had prompted the change in schedule.

Arms laden with groceries, he stumbled in the door.  He expected to hear the brothers grousing at one another or at least the TV blaring, but everything was oddly silent. 

"Hello?" He called as he made his way down the hall.  As he neared the living room, he heard Sarah's stage whisper, "In here, but shut it.  He's finally sleeping."

A little relieved, Adam headed to the kitchen with his burdens.  As he was placing the last items in the fridge, Sarah shuffled into the kitchen, looking haggard.

"Please tell me you brought alcohol," she sighed, slumping over the kitchen table.

Adam pointed to the beer on the table and hefted a bottle of whiskey.  "Essentials for Lynch invasion," he said frowning slightly, "but I thought there was a mostly full one in the cabinet."

"Oh," she said, cracking open the whiskey and motioning at Adam to fetch her a glass, "the boys are probably most of the way to pissed on that one by now."

Adam sighed.  He retrieved a second glass for himself and held it out to Sarah to fill.  Though he very rarely drank, the last two months had been an exhausting emotional rollercoaster.  Opal's departure had been harder on both Ronan and himself than they had expected.

It often appeared, objectively, that Opal flitted capriciously about the Barns and surrounding woods, entirely consumed with her own whimsical business.  However, it seemed she was essential to everything.  Ronan had become unwittingly reliant on her innate sensitivity with both animals and plants to manage problems.  Since she'd left, Ronan had nearly been trampled by the new bull, scratched savagely by one of the chickens, and watched an entire crop of cucumbers inexplicably whither, among other travesties.

Adam had not realized how subtly and cleverly she intuited his and Ronan's moods and shifted them into harmony.  She could easily distract either one of them out of a defensive funk.  Without her, they fought more and struggled harder to get to resolution.  Adam had to force himself into a meditative state more frequently.  Ronan did a lot more storming around outside.

"I can guess why Ronan is getting smashed, but what about the other two?" Adam asked.

"I can imagine," she began, "two hours in the car with a howling little monster is a contributing factor, but mostly they're comforting Ronan and missing your girl."

"Declan and Matthew too?"

Sarah smiled sweetly.  "Isn't it obvious how much they adore her?"

"I suppose," he said ruefully, polishing off the remains of his glass.  "William still teething?"

"Jesus, yes.  Another reason we're here a day early.  I think Dec needed an excuse to get a night away from the crying, damn his eyes," she took a heavy gulp of her whiskey.  "Won't be surprised if those idiots sleep out in the damn barn."

Adam snorted.  "If they only have one bottle, they'll probably be back in here in a couple hours for more.  You need help moving William upstairs?"

She gave him a look of exaggerated terror.  "This is the quietest he's been all day.  I fear to disturb him.  I should probably go check."

Adam walked with her to the living room.  The little one was passed out, mouth slightly ajar, on a familiar moss green pillow.

"It's a dream thing," Adam whispered, "I live with an insomniac.  8 hours of dreamless sleep if the sleeper isn't moved off the pillow."

Sarah turned to him, incredulous.  "You selfish shites.  Here I've been suffering through hell for weeks and you have a fucking sleep pillow.  You bastards."

Adam smiled at her.  "It's Ronan's," he said, as if that explained everything.

"So, if no one moves him, he'll sleep eight hours?"

"Should," Adam replied.

"Why am I wasting time drinking with you?  I'm sleeping in there with the lad.  Right now.  Dear God, eight hours," she breathed.

Adam helped her get blankets and a pillow into the living room.

"Get out to that barn with the booze and keep those arseholes out here until morning."

"Yes, ma'am," Adam replied, slathering his accent on thickly.

***

Ronan was never hard to find at night.  The dream lights floating all over the property tended to follow him when he passed by.  Tonight, the trail of light helped guide him to what they had dubbed the Music Barn.  The outside was no different from any of the more conventional barns, but the inside was a temperature-controlled repository for all the Lynch instruments that had been previously scattered about the house.  The acoustics also made it both a pleasant place to listen and play.

Opal, ever eager for stories, had unearthed the instruments years before, trapped the brothers with them, and demanded they play "fairy music."  Declan was blamed for telling her stories about musical Fae enchantments.  Despite the protests, all three had played some snippets of Irish music they knew, a blend of fraternal competition and cooperation that left them all strangely satisfied.  For the past few years, they'd all taken up playing again, encouraged by Opal, who had innate talent on the pan pipes.  Adam had insisted on establishing the Music Barn, ostensibly to keep the paraphernalia from being abandoned all over the house, but mostly because the volume of Ronan's Uilleann pipes was overwhelming.

It would not have been unusual to find the Lynch brothers both drinking and playing.  The scene he came upon, however, was far more drinking than playing.  Opal was typically the catalyst for these sessions; challenging one or all of them to follow the path of her capricious melody, making a game out of cycling through a simple reel at increasing speeds, speculating on the music of Tír na nÓg.  Without her, they slouched around moodily, taking shots, missing her.  Declan's fiddle was still in its case.  Matthew's bouzouki was abandoned beside a chair.  Ronan tapped a deceptively complex rhythm on a bodhran, probably too drunk already to play the pipes.  He was likely in more of a percussion mood anyway. Adam felt a gloomy weight descend on his shoulders.  Opal's absence was an empty box he kept tripping over every time he moved. 

Squaring his shoulders, he entered the barn with booze prominently displayed.  "We've all been banished from the house," Adam announced.

"Thank God," said Declan, shuddering.  "I thought you were coming to tell me my reprieve was up.  I was planning to plead drunk," he said, raising his empty shot glass.

"No one banishes me from my house but me," Ronan slurred, though he did not cease drumming or attempt to get up.

"Up to you if you want to listen to a teething baby scream all night," Adam countered mildly.

All three Lynch brothers flinched.  Adam would not tell them about the soundly sleeping mother and child in the living room.  The new bottle was placed beside the old and glasses were refilled. An additional one was produced from somewhere by Matthew for Adam.  He was already feeling the effects of what he'd had, but empathized with the general mood well enough to get at least halfway to drunk tonight.  He'd certainly not reach the level Ronan and Declan had already sloshed to.

"That boy must have banshee blood in him somewhere," Declan intoned.  He sighed dramatically.  "If Opal was here, we'd probably make up a song about it." 

He clumsily pulled out his bow and violin, screeching the bow over the strings horribly.

"That about right, Matthew?"

"Jesus, Dec, no need to replicate it.  I thought we were safe out here," Matthew replied.

"You bitch about it now," Ronan said, "but wait until _your_ kid leaves for magical forest shit.  You'll be right back here, crying your eyes out."

This was mean-spirited and put a grimace on Declan's face. " _My_ kid is going to college, not a magical forest," he replied as crisply as he could through the haze of liquor.

"Not if he's part banshee," Ronan sneered.

Adam didn't like the direction this was going. Breaking up a fight between drunken Lynch brothers was hazardous, especially when the third Lynch was too wasted to be very useful.  He wandered despondently over to a basket of tin whistles and recorders.  He remembered playing a recorder in elementary school at some point.  It couldn't be that difficult. He picked one up and blew into it softly.  Yes, that was the pleasant, childish tone. He placed his fingers over the holes and experimented a bit.  Tipsy enough to block out his surroundings, he failed to notice the growing silence behind him.  He turned to find all three brothers staring at him with perfectly matched expressions of horror.

"Wow, Adam," said Matthew, "That's really fucking terrible."

Adam quickly dropped the recorder from his mouth and hid it in his hand.  "I was just messing around," he said defensively.

"It was shit even for messing around," added Ronan.  "A fucking kindergartener can play better than that."

"I wasn't really playing!  I was just-"

"Play something then," interjected Declan.  "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.  That should be at your skill level."

Matthew and Ronan sniggered.

Adam scowled.  "I don't play music.  I was just sick of listening to you two snipe at each other."

Declan and Ronan exchanged an identical, fraternal look Adam could not interpret.  They each downed another shot.

"Did you or did you not," asked Declan loftily, "marry my brother?"

Adam held up his ring finger like it was the middle one.

"Do you reside in the Lynch family home?"

Adam rolled his eyes.

"You are, by your own admission, a member of the Lynch family.  Therefore," he concluded pointing his finger imperiously aloft, "you will learn a goddamned instrument."  The mocking hint of brogue in his voice suggested some form of this speech was a relic of Niall.

"Sarah's a member of the Lynch family. What does she play?"  Adam snapped, considerably less inebriated than anyone else.

"Cello," lied Declan so smoothly Adam couldn't tell whether he was lying about the specific instrument or that she played at all.

"Ronan, seriously," Adam pleaded.

"I learned to play the motherfucking Uilleann pipes, man.  Which I won't even let a tone deaf fucker like you look at.  You're learning something.  Lynch rules."

"I don't recall signing anything to that effect."

"Unwritten," barked Declan, "but unavoidable."

Adam shot a desperate glance at Matthew, who grinned and hefted the bouzouki.  "Pipe organ, too," Matthew said cheekily.

Declan had come over to stand in front of him with Adam's refilled glass.

"One for courage, bro, then you're playing that fucking nursery rhyme."

Adam drank before he butchered Twinkle Twinkle.

The night carried on with the brothers testing Adam's natural talent (he didn't have any) against several instruments.  Adam left off the drinking as the others continued from just drunk to outright pissed.  He thought he might be able to get somewhere with the lap harp - it was fairly mathematical if you stuck to sheet music.  While Declan and Matthew dove deeper into tormenting him, Adam noticed Ronan growing morose and distant, steadily drinking despite the enormous volume he'd already consumed.

After the ribbing he'd received from them for several hours, he felt no remorse in leaving Matthew and Declan snoring on the floor of the Music Barn.  Ronan, however, was hauled messily to his feet and half-carried by Adam to the bed in the Dream Barn.  All the dream things were stored there, and Ronan sometimes did his dreaming there if he was working on something specific or if he feared particularly hideous nightmares.

Adam dumped the nearly unconscious Ronan into the bed.  He stood panting beside it, massaging one shoulder.

"Adam?" Ronan said, slurring terribly.  He'd reached out a hand.  Adam sat beside it and took it in his own.

"Yeah?"

"I thought it would be the same as missing you when you were in school.  But it's worse."

Adam nodded.  "Because she's not coming back to stay," Adam finished for him.

"Fuck," said Ronan, "I'm not even 26 yet.  I shouldn't have to deal with this shit until I'm like 50."

"It's unfair," Adam agreed.

"I seriously think you might be fucking tone deaf," Ronan said, eyes closed, just before he started to snore.

"Asshole," Adam whispered lovingly.

They both needed a way to restart themselves, to tip the boat all the way over and rebalance it.  Drinking was not enough, nor did Adam really want either of them making a regular habit of it - at tonight's level anyway.

Before he fell asleep, awkwardly scrunched onto the small portion of bed not covered with a sprawled drunk, he began to formulate a plan.  It was time to show his little project to Ronan.

***

Ronan woke alone.  It took him a couple minutes to figure out where he was.  He assessed his hangover - it was fairly gruesome.  His head throbbed and his stomach lurched unpleasantly.  After a long piss and several minutes hunched over the bathroom sink pushing water into his face, he dared to open the outside door.

Mid-day sunlight stabbed directly through his retinas into his brain.  He groaned, ducking back inside for a moment.  As appealing as it was to consider crawling back into bed, animals needed to be fed and he desperately needed a shower.  The sweaty booze scent coming off him was nauseating.

Bravely, he stumbled squinting back to the house, only pausing to rest and struggle not to puke in three shady alcoves.  He drank four glasses of water over the kitchen sink before acknowledging the other occupants of the room.

"Good afternoon, sunshine," Sarah chirruped brightly, sitting at the kitchen table with William on her lap, sorting Cheerios.

Ronan flipped her and the baby off.  He noted Declan heaped on the table beside his wife.  There were a couple soggy Cheerios smashed into his hair, but he didn't seem to notice.

"Adam asked me to tell you he fed all your creatures," Sarah continued.

Ronan was systematically opening every kitchen cabinet and slamming it shut.  With every slam, Declan winced.  William found each one more hilarious than the last.

"Aspirin is on the counter by the sink," she said.

Ronan stopped slamming to glare at the bottle sitting exactly where it was supposed to be.  He swallowed a few pills, then went back to slamming in search of something edible to soak up the remaining alcohol in his stomach.

Three mouthfuls of crackers later, he turned suspiciously to Sarah.

"Why are you playing Adam's fucking secretary?  Where is that asshole?" He asked unpleasantly.

"Watch how you talk to my wife," Declan rumbled without lifting his head.  "I can still knock your teeth out if I need to."

It didn't feel like a credible threat when Declan was just as hung over as Ronan was, so it was ignored.

Sarah swatted at Declan as she laughed at Ronan. "You look as hideous as you smell, right now, so I'll let you off the hook.  He said he had to do some errands.  He'll text you."

Ronan frowned, stomping upstairs to shower.  By the time he reluctantly checked his phone, it was 2:00pm and there was, indeed, a text from Adam.  Ronan heartily resented Adam's absence.  The message did not improve anything.

There was a set of GPS coordinates, followed by "Meet me at 3:00."

Ronan dialed Adam's number four times, but Adam did not pick up.  He didn't bother leaving a message.  According to his map function, the coordinates indicated an apparently random turn of highway in the mountains about 45 minutes away.  Annoyed but also intrigued, Ronan got ready to go.  He was more annoyed than intrigued when he found the truck missing.  The door to the BMW was slammed, gravel flying in the car's wake.  No way he was parking his Corvette in the middle of nowhere.  Fucking Parrish.

Eating up the road with the window down, music blaring, helped Ronan's head clear.  He was moving back toward intrigued with each mile. 

The location turned out to be a turnout/parking area with enough space for maybe four cars - a scenic lookout.  He slid the BMW in next to the truck.  As he strode around the tailgate, he stopped short.  This was unexpected.

Adam leaned against the side of the truck, playing on his phone.  He was dressed in black and blue motocross pants with a matching jacket, unzipped to reveal a fitted white t-shirt underneath.  Tall, slim, wind-tousled, and outfitted to race, he looked infinitely enticing.  Especially given the two dirt bikes parked in front of him.

"If this is a kinky role play thing," Ronan said by way of greeting, "I'm into it."

Adam just rolled his eyes and tossed Ronan a jacket similar to his own, which was the hottest thing he could have done. 

"Let's get going," was all Adam said.

Ronan looked around while he shrugged the jacket on.  Unless they were careening down the side of the mountain, he couldn't figure out where they would be going.

"Are these things street legal?  Do you even know how to ride one?" Ronan asked. 

Adam shrugged, zipping up his jacket, grabbing a helmet from one of the bikes.  "How hard can it be?  Chickenshit, Lynch?"

A pulse of adrenaline beat through Ronan.  He smiled like danger, catching the helmet Adam tossed to him.  "Let's go."

They traveled a short way up the empty highway, Ronan too focused on getting a feel for the bike and following Adam's lead to think too deeply about the fact that Adam, of all the nerdy fucks in the world, seemed perfectly proficient on his bike.  In fact, Ronan was absorbed enough in the wild rush of naked speed accented by the biting wind around his wrists and collar, he nearly missed the whip-quick right Adam made onto a half-hidden gravel track.  They were still within sight of the road when their progress was halted by an eight-foot fence, complete with chain, padlock, and strongly worded trespassing sign.

Adam slid lithely off his bike and pulled off his helmet, hanging it on a handlebar.   He approached the gate, examining the padlock.  Ronan removed his own helmet, strolling up beside Adam.

"What now, magician?"  He asked sarcastically.  This sudden set-back was more disappointing than he wanted to admit.

Adam shrugged a backpack off his shoulders, reached in, and retrieved a set of bolt cutters, as if he carried them around all the fucking time, like some kind of burglar Boy Scout.  Ronan's gasoline heart fired with furious anticipation.  Adam smoothly cut the padlock.  He casually tossed it into the brush before neatly putting away his bolt cutters.

"Who are you and what have you done with Parrish?"  Ronan asked, awed.

Adam raised his eyebrows haughtily.  "I wanted to do something fun.  If you don't wanna come with-"

"Oh, I'm coming with," Ronan said vehemently.  "You can't deny that riding a goddamn dirt bike and trespassing aren't in your usual fucking repertoire, though."

"Since when are you so concerned with legalities, Lynch?" replied Adam, opening the gate.

"Since when are you not?" Ronan countered, rolling his bike inside the perimeter behind Adam.

Adam only smirked as he closed the gate behind them.

"Do you even know where we're going?" asked Ronan.

"I know a guy with a lot of aerial maps," he retorted.  "But there will probably be a few surprises."

Adam stepped in front of Ronan, close enough to lay a gloved hand on his shoulder. "You up for a little adventure?"

All the mystery unraveled.  Adam had planned this for Ronan, to toss him out of his rut and back into the roar of waking life.  He'd broken (minor) laws and even unclenched his wallet enough to spend a fair amount of actual money for this endeavor, all in the course of a single day.  Ronan wondered if he'd ever finish falling for this mercurial genius.

"Always," he said huskily.

They rode along a narrow path, kicking up clouds of dust and leaf litter, sometimes racing one another, sometimes riding carefully around overgrown hazards.  What Adam had not revealed was that this particular track ran along the ley line, and Adam could roughly sense his way along it better than he could remember the aerial map he'd carefully perused that morning.  The moment they entered the boundary of Cabeswater, Adam felt the energy surge over him.  He used the force of his intention to keep carving a path to something he'd been working quietly on for a couple months. 

Ronan was aware they had entered the bounds of Cabeswater, and was now eaten with curiosity to see where Adam was leading them.  They stopped at the edge of a lush wall of foliage, so dense Ronan could glimpse nothing beyond it.

"Is this supposed to be here?" Ronan asked, depositing his helmet and gloves with the bike.

"It's the border," Adam said mysteriously, leaving his accessories beside his own vehicle.

Ronan frowned at him.  An aura of power, intention, radiated from Adam more like a heat signature than a visible thing.  All the iterations of Adam were attractive to Ronan, but this was one of his favorites - Adam embracing a strangeness kindred to Ronan's own.  Adam took Ronan's hand and pulled him directly into a thicket of green.  They should have been hopelessly tangled in vines and brambles, but it was as soft and malleable as stepping through a curtain.

Outside, it had been a gold-tinted late afternoon.  Inside, it was night.  They were in an oak grove, populated by trees of all different stages of growth.  There were ancient spreading giants, supple saplings, and trees barely eight feet tall but spreading wide.  The stars winked very brightly through gaps in the leaf canopy.  Everything was black and silver.  At first, Ronan attributed the color scheme to the sparse light, but he soon realized it really was black and silver. Silver leaves and stripes on black bark; silver edging each blade of grass like a million tiny daggers; silver stream meandering over black rocks shot through with silver veins; black vines, black hairy moss clumped over branches.  As the wind rustled through the trees, its progress was marked by a tinkling of tiny chimes, a little like the sound of Opal's bracelet, but multiplied by a hundred thousand.  Whispers of the _tire e’ elintes_ greeted them joyfully - this little miracle was much beloved.  Too overcome with wonder to posture, Ronan gently took an oak leaf between his fingers.  By the sounds, he'd expected metal, but it held the ordinary texture of a leaf - smooth on its silver top, fuzzy on its black underside.  This felt exactly, perfectly like a dream.  He was all undone.  Was this what other people felt when he created a dream thing?  He looked at Adam.

"Am I awake?"

Adam came over, slipped a hand under the hem of Ronan's jacket and pinched him.

"Ow, fucker," Ronan hissed.  "That doesn't prove anything."

Adam grinned.  "How about this?"

He brushed his thumbs over Ronan's cheekbones, and kissed him with infinite tenderness.  He smelled a little like the motorcycle helmet and dust and gasoline, and a little like the intangible something that marked him as real.  Ronan's sense of vertigo eased.

"What do you think?" Adam whispered.

"I'm pretty fucking impressed," Ronan whispered back.  It felt wrong to disturb the trackless music of water and tinkling leaves.  "Did you make this?"

"Manifested," corrected Adam as he sank down to the dark and glinting grass to lie prone below the impossibly dense wash of stars.  Ronan joined him, pressing close to Adam's side as if Adam might vanish into this dreamscape.

"But you didn't dream it, did you?" Ronan asked, trepidatious.

"Not all magicians have it so easy," he replied with a touch of warm humor. "I spent a lot of time meditating here, shaping it.  And I think it worked because it’s full of things the _tire e’ elintes_ like.  They helped, when they got the sense of it - magnifying, focusing.  It was an experiment."

Ronan made a little noise to show he was listening.  He twined his fingers with Adam's.

"We've spent all these years talking to them, telling them what we wanted, getting answers to things we asked, but we weren't _listening_."

Ronan turned his head to look at the architecture of Adam's profile.  "Isn't that what all that ley line maintenance shit has been about?  Listening to what Cabeswater wants?"

"It's different.  Like the difference between your Mom telling you to take out the trash and listening to Gansey and Henry and Blue just having a conversation at the Barns."

Adam turned to Ronan, who was utterly focused on him.  "We need to stop asking and just _listen_.  You can understand them when you're asleep, right?"

"Sort of," Ronan frowned, "it depends on what I'm dreaming about."

"Same when I scry.  I can understand some, like pictures and feelings - not words."

Ronan waited.  He could tell Adam was on the edge of a breakthrough, a chink of light in the dark wall they'd been crashing against for years.

"This place - do you think you can try to come here when you dream?"

Ronan inhaled deeply, cataloging, memorizing the smell.  He rubbed the grass between his fingers, considered the exact cadence of the chiming, the black and silver shadows, the quality of the starlight.

"Yes.  It's exactly what a dream feels like when I can take something out - so real it's impossible," Ronan said.

"I think we need to spend some time here, just listening, not making," Adam said.

"I don't know if I'll remember what I heard when I'm awake," Ronan said, frustrated.

"I know," Adam agreed, "but I think this is our best chance to figure it out.  It's how I manifested this place, mostly."

They lay together for a little while, silent, listening, stargazing. The trees whispered under the tinkling of the leaves bumping together.  They could almost, almost understand it.

Ronan heaved a sigh.  "Weird date, man.  It started out pretty sexy, ended up something else."

Adam chuckled.  "You're so predictable.  I knew the bikes would get you all hot and bothered."

Ronan nudged Adam with his elbow.  "Bikes?  It was you in that fucking outfit.  Your ass in those pants - shit!  I'm making you wear that on my birthday."

Adam snorted.  "I'm still wearing it," he said, "right now."

Ronan rolled onto his side, humming in an appraising way, carefully evaluating Adam from head to toe. Outlined in the faintly luminous silvered grass, blue eyes turned to reflecting pools of grey/white light, smirk on his mouth like a dare, there was no way Ronan could resist him.

Ronan climbed over to straddle Adam's hips.  Slowly, he pulled down the zipper of Adam's jacket.  Adam's eyes didn't leave his for a second. 

"You think the locals will mind?" Ronan whispered, guiding Adam's arms out of the coat, kissing each one from palm to elbow as it was exposed.

The creek burbled lightly, something like laughter.

Adam's mouth bloomed into a full smile.  "I don't think they care about that kind of thing," he said, reaching up to tug Ronan's head down to his.

***

Returning to the truck felt like waking up from a vivid dream to find yourself scrunched up on the couch with a crick in your neck - painfully ordinary. 

"Those assholes at the house are probably expecting dinner," Ronan groused, slamming the tailgate shut behind the motorcycles.

Adam bumped him with a hip.  "What about me?" he asked.  "I just took you on a date.  I even put out.  Way I see it, I'm the only one who deserves to get dinner."

Ronan grinned with fiendish delight.  "You're suggesting, Parrish, I should ignore the," he pulled his phone out of his pocket, "6 missed calls and 10 text messages from my dickhead brother to take you out instead?"

Adam raised his pale eyebrows in challenge.  He turned halfway away from Ronan, comically cocking a hip, pointing to his motocross pants.  Ronan smacked his ass.

"Too fucking right, Parrish."

Ronan looked at the truck.  "But driving behind you down this hill will fucking kill me.  Meet you at the Shell station?"

"Sure," Adam said.  "Try not to die in a fiery wreck on the way down.  I'm hungry."

"Please," Ronan scoffed dismissively.

As soon as the BMW was out of sight, Adam drove up the mile to the gate they'd gone through earlier.  He put a new, nearly identical padlock on the gate chain.  He also replaced the "Property of the Tree Light Foundation" sign that had been hidden under the passenger seat of the truck.  He'd stop by to give Gansey the new key tomorrow.


	22. 10 Years -The Gate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The gang figures out how to wake the dreams.
> 
> There was no hiding it from Opal. As soon as she saw them, her entire face lit up. She made a triumphant cawing sound. "You did it! You amazing assholes! I want to see it. When can we go?"  
> Ronan collapsed onto the couch, arm over his face. Adam crumpled onto it as well, similarly spent. When Adam looked at her, he allowed all his melancholy, exhaustion, and concern show on his face. She took an unsteady step back and closed her eyes, as if she was recoiling from a blow.  
> "Give us a day, won't you darlin'? Just one more?" Adam asked, his accent heavy in his mouth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is long and there are sexy times near the end - more explicit than anywhere else in the fic, but mild compared to most of the sexy times around the fandom.

On the outside, the Dream Barn appeared to be an outsized but dilapidated structure on the outskirts of the farthest field of the Barns property.  Just fifty feet behind it, the land sloped up into an unkempt tangle of wood, liberally tufted with poison oak.  The walls looked warped, the surrounding grass weedy and coarse.  Creeper vines were working tendrils under the cracks of the peeling white paint.  Rust decorated visible edges of the metal roof as well as the thick chain and padlock keeping the large doors securely shut.  More than one of the occasional day laborers or contractors permitted on the property had speculated to Ronan it might be better off torn down. 

No outsiders were aware that the Dream Barn's real entrance was a trap door cleverly concealed beneath a particularly scraggly Flying Dragon bush.  The inside was another matter entirely.

As soon as the entrance door closed, the rest of the staircase and a short tunnel blossomed into rose-gold light, courtesy of motion-sensitive orbs that floated eternally near the low ceiling.  As there was an entire level underground and the barn was easily 25 feet high, the first section was set up as an open floor loft-style townhouse.  A vast skylight concealed from the ground by the roof facade around it let in natural light all the way to the ground.  Various strange and wonderful dreamt lights aided in brightening every corner.

The ground floor contained only a bed and a bathroom, Ronan's "office", as he liked to refer to it.  The second floor was something like a laboratory - long tables and shelves against the wall, a large open space in the middle.  This was where dream things were evaluated, experimented with, catalogued, or selected for destruction.  Though he had gained both precision and depth over the years, not everything Ronan brought out was benevolent or even useful.  There were traps and steel boxes and cages on both the first and second floors, just in case. 

The third floor, bathed in rich sunlight or gleaming moonlight, was a library, heavily littered with handwritten journals.  These mismatched leather-bound volumes were the products of much research in many hands: Niall's flourishing script, Adam's frenetic chicken scratch, Ronan's heavy, furious hand, Gansey's sturdy all caps, Blue's mixed cursive and print, Opal's spidery, old-fashioned style, Henry's calligraphy perfect hand. They all referred to it as research, but the majority was far from academic.  Poetry, musings, and dirty secrets of the magical artifact-buying community comprised much of Niall's journals, though Ronan had discovered some interesting tidbits about purposeful dreaming.  Niall had known nothing of ley lines, but his accounts of particularly potent dreaming locations often coincided with ley lines and power centers therein.  These clues were proving invaluable to the Tree Light Foundation. 

The rest were a motley jumble of combined efforts.  Ronan and Adam carefully recorded all ideas and experiments related to the making and waking of dreams.

Ronan's entries often included swift line sketches that were as suggestive of an emotion as a figure, sometimes with a few dashes of color, especially once they began the listening cycle in the starlight glade. 

Adam's were bullet points and outlines, but the contents typically seemed disconnected, as they were snippets of scrying visions or diagrams of tarot layouts with only the arcana numbers to translate.  At the bottom there might be some notes about interpretation.

Blue's contributions were the most coherent - stories she'd heard, incidents witnessed or verified on other ley lines, coordinates of other forests, analyzed predictions or impressions from various psychics, both strange and familiar.

Gansey kept his own set of journals at home, building toward the academic masterpiece he was writing on American ley lines, but his hand could be found here and there asking questions or making notes in the margins.  Henry's ideas appeared making half-formed addenda to interpretations throughout.

Opal's notes were the most critical.  Her sentences were sparse and often in a tangle of languages.  However, she would draw a flowering vine or a trail of pink squirrel footprints across many pages, and it would connect a notation of Ronan's to a tarot spread of Adam's 20 pages later to a story of Blue's in another book to one of Henry's observations somewhere else.  Certain details would be emphasized.  Suddenly all the items taken together would inspire an insight, which would lead to another set of connected entries.

In the vast remaining space beyond the townhouse portion reposed all the dream things, separated from the living space by locked doors.  After a couple years of trial and error, the four of them had managed to wake the dream animals just long enough to herd them into the Dream Barn before they could go listless again.  They were far less numerous than before - many had been unmade by the demon.  Ronan's despondency after Niall's creatures were moved but returned to apathy made him as unapproachable as a wild animal by anyone for nearly a week, and only Adam could get near him for another after that.

While they listened to the _tire e ‘elintes_ , Opal traveled to the Redwoods in California, the wilds of the Yucatán, the gnarled woods of Eastern Europe, the heavy jungles of Vietnam.  From each place, she wrote them long rambling letters and sent gifts of stones and seeds and flowers.  Adam found if he arranged the stones properly while scrying in Cabeswater, he would find his mind wandering in and out of lush steaming glades or impossibly tall, quiet pines.  He and Ronan planted a bizarre, mismatched grove around her little house that delighted her during her rare visits home.  Under Adam's influence, trees sprung up unnaturally fast.

Though he was often traveling, Gansey was more frequently in Henrietta than Blue or Henry, and it became his task to comb through all the gathered research.  This was complicated by the fact that all dream things and directly related musings were exclusively restricted to the Dream Barn, by mutual agreement.

There were plenty of dream things inside the main farmhouse itself, but they were only those that were either subtle or easily locked away.  Neither Adam nor Ronan would ever forget that Niall Lynch was murdered on this very property and Ronan very nearly followed.  Caution was never a joke.

So Gansey would sit in the Dream Barn library for hours, days, weeks, months, paging through, marking passages, making notes in a fresh journal, setting up tasks for Adam and Ronan to execute for verification.

***

Chainsaw sat protectively on Opal's shoulder, carefully maneuvering her beak through each strand of her fine blonde hair, which Opal fondly encouraged as she shifted to allow Chainsaw greater access.  The two dream things quietly exchanged weird knocking sounds. Sprawled on the floor immediately beside them, trying to look nonchalant, was Ronan.  His constant fidgeting with his wristbands, hair, and the loose threads on his jeans belied his anxiety.  Adam, in an armchair adjacent to Ronan, slid a sock-clad foot under Ronan's hip.  Gratefully, Ronan encircled his delicate anklebone with his fingers, rubbing his skin like a talisman.

"She's okay, Ronan," Blue said gently from the other armchair.  "Hell, she managed to scare off an eight-foot bear in Siberia.  Henry fainted."

"I didn't faint!" Henry protested a little too high-pitched.  "I tripped!  And I was playing dead.  That's what you do with bears, right?"

Opal snorted.  "He fainted," she said.

Adam and Ronan both sniggered.  Henry glared at her.

"I'd say I would leave you behind next time for impugning my honor, but I need you to protect me out in the wild," Henry huffed.

Opal gave him a soft, fond look that had both Adam and Ronan frowning just a little.  Ronan scooted infinitesimally closer to Opal and Chainsaw gave Henry a little warning croak.

Finally, Gansey looked up from his journal and cleared his throat.  The morning sun coming through the skylight gilded his brown hair golden and glinted off the lenses of his glasses.

"I believe I finally have it," he said hesitantly, "but I don't think you're going to like it."

"Just spit it out, man," Ronan snapped, sitting all the way up.  He slid his hand from Adam's ankle to the more substantial meat of his calf, just to have something to hang onto.

Gansey took on his professorial aspect, moving into lecture mode.

"We have established that a Dreamer draws the energy for his creations from the ley line.  Dreaming increases in potency when the Dreamer uses a node of energy, like Cabeswater, especially if the Dreamer works in partnership with the node."

Nods and impatient hand gestures.

"We have also concluded that sentient objects pulled from dreams are tied to the Dreamer's own life force, but why?  If a totally independent source powers the factory where they are made, why can't it continue to power them if the factory shuts down?"

"The factory shapes and designs dream things," Opal said quietly, "it tells them how to be."

"Electricity is just charged particles," added Adam.  "It doesn't do anything unless you direct it."

"Exactly," said Gansey, pointing at them.  "But there's a contradiction.  If the energy is shaped into what is essentially a human, how far does the input from the Dreamer go?  Opal has indicated she can intuit a certain constant input from Ronan," Ronan whipped his head to her, expression complicated, "but she makes decisions independent of that input.  One can conclude that the longer she exists outside the Dreamer's realm, the more range she can gain from the factory's input.  As we learned from Aurora Lynch, a human dream without a Dreamer still has an individual will."

Adam's hand cupped the back of Ronan's neck tenderly, trying to absorb some of the shock of Aurora's name.

"So the problem is," continued Gansey, "the only way to move the dream person between the place she comes from and our more corporeal reality is through the Dreamer's factory.  For the dream to be truly independent, the dream would need to become the Dreamer."

"Is that really your big fucking reveal?" snarled Ronan, leaping up to pace.  "How does that help Opal or Matthew?  They can't just become Dreamers."

Opal stretched out a hand and caught his pant leg.

"Kerah," she sighed, "I need a door.  Not back to your dream place.  I need a door back to mine, the dream place where dreams are not yet made."

"And what the fuck happens there?  What does that mean?  I don't even understand what that is.  How can I make a door to a place I can't even- How do you get back?"

"A door can open on both sides, Kerah.  I can come back as I choose."

Henry interjected, "You can't set up a door like that anywhere.  If it's a conduit for magical energy, it has to be somewhere the magic and not-magic are close, you know, or it would stretch too far, maybe break."

"Cabeswater," mused Blue.

"Yes, Cabeswater," said Gansey, thumb on his lower lip, "but it would have to be at a point where the dream aspect and the real world aspect were sort of merged.  Adam?"

Adam had been frowning thoughtfully, eyes distant.  "We'd need to do it together, me and Ronan," Adam murmured.

"Do _what_ exactly?" Ronan asked, exasperated.  "I told you, I don't really understand where the door or portal or whatever is even going."

"Adam does," said Opal.  "He can show you."

Everyone turned curiously toward Adam, who nodded slowly as he continued to look into a place no one else could see.  "I need to think about how," was all he said.

" _You_ need to- never mind _me_!  Just dream up a fucking gateway to another dimension you don't even know how to think about, Ronan, no big deal!" 

Ronan's mind was a hurricane.  What if the door went to the wrong place?  What if it went somewhere he couldn't follow?  If Opal needed his help, he couldn't get to her. What if he fucked up?  Killed another member of his family with this shit?  This library, the Dream Barn, all the expectations of his friends - he was suffocating.  Without another word, he bolted down the stairs and out into the daylight, Chainsaw flapping swiftly behind him.

Blue jumped up.  "Is he all right?  Should I go after him?"

Opal and Adam both shook their heads.

"If you feel like getting your head bitten off," said Adam, "be my guest.  He needs a couple hours at least."

Blue rolled her eyes.  "Does all the drama ever get old, Adam?"

Adam gave her a sly grin.  "He's a passionate person.  The rewards outweigh the headaches."

Henry hooted appreciatively.  Gansey flushed a little and blustered around it.

"I know you have all kinds of substantiating material, Gansey," said Adam.

His face went uncharacteristically hard.  "You damn well better if you expect me to let my daughter and my brother-in-law walk into this thing."

Gansey's face lit with academic fervor.  Blue sighed.  "I'm going to make tea," she said. 

Opal perched herself on the arm of Adam's chair, slipping a hand into his.

***

Ronan trudged into the bedroom a little after midnight, too exhausted and strained to even be hungry, even though he hadn't eaten all day.  It irritated him further to discover Adam stretched out on the floor, moving fluidly through an unconventional tarot layout, likely his own design. He was sick to death of the magical and uncanny.  All he wanted was his damn sleep pillow, which he couldn't fucking find, a glass of water, which he was too tired to go back downstairs for, and some respite from his own damn thoughts.

In the time it took to shuck off his clothes, brush his teeth, and crash onto the bed, the tarot cards had vanished, a tall, icy glass of water sat on the bedside table (quickly gulped down), and his dream-free sleep pillow cushioned his head.  The sweet lavender and moss scent of it immediately tugged his eyelids to half-mast.

"Hey," said Adam, softly kissing his shoulder.

Ronan rolled his head toward his husband.  "You know," he sighed, "sometimes your psychic shit is kind of convenient."

Adam's mouth quirked.  Ronan loved that sardonic smirk. He felt a little bit better.

"I hope, after ten years, I don't have to be psychic to figure out what you need," Adam said, "but it probably doesn't hurt."

"Mmmmm," Ronan replied, blinking heavily.  "This really is the way, isn't it?" He asked with none of his usual vitriol.

Adam nodded.  "Once he said it, I felt like I already knew.  He put everything together pretty well, after you left, but you heard the important part."

"Yeah," Ronan said along a hard exhale.  He reached out and clasped Adam's forearm, stroking the soft skin between his wrist and elbow with his thumb.  "I'm afraid I'll fuck it up and lose them forever."

Adam did not babble empty reassurances.  He did not try to soothe, as Blue might have, or rationalize like Gansey.  He merely looked at Ronan, steady and true, unwavering as he had been for a decade.

"I love you," said Adam, and It sounded like _even if you do fuck it up, I'll stand by you_.

Ronan closed his eyes, the restless thing inside him briefly settled, and said, "I love you, too," before eight hours of blissfully dreamless sleep claimed him.

***

In the ethereal tinkling of the starlight glade, Adam's long fingers delicately stroking his hair, Ronan fell asleep, keeping the glade and Adam's warmth beside him at the center of his mind.

The dream coalesced around him, resolving from a heavy mist into the black and silver wood, but Adam and his own slumbering body were nowhere he could see.  Ronan was entirely in the dream aspect of Cabeswater.  Cabeswater was a merged realm, so the tangible world was very close here - it was what made dreaming so potent in this place.  It was still hard to keep himself focused and feel for the physical plane without shredding the delicate net of the dream and waking up, so it was Adam's energy he sought, the truest thing he knew.

 

Adam breathed in the loamy damp, pulling the essence of Cabeswater into his lungs, imagining the energy permeating his blood alongside the oxygen molecules.  He allowed part of his mind to wander along the complex ecosystem of the starlight glade he'd carefully designed.  Another part clung to the warmth of Ronan's skin, the softness of the dark curls on the top of his head.  It had taken 10 years to grow proficient enough in the art of meditation to split his mind this way without the whole meditation falling apart.  Gently, he waded into the thoughts of the trees and the dreams of Ronan Lynch, seeking the place where they met.  When he thought he could feel the balance of the energies, -Ronan's, Cabeswater's and his own - he opened his eyes and stood.  The sleeping figure was no longer beside him, but Adam couldn't be sure whether or not his own body had come along for the ride.  Best not to consider it too intently.

He followed the silver stream a little deeper into the glade - the place was always shifting and expanding - and sensed rather than saw a presence that was almost definitely Ronan.  There were two silver-mottled trees with a shadow between them and then the shadow was a man.  "Greywaren," the trees whispered, "Magus."

Ronan seemed somehow more angular, his face darker or more wreathed in shadow than it should be.  It occurred to him this might be how Ronan perceived himself, a subconscious dream avatar. When Adam dreamed of Ronan, he was often brighter than everything else, and a little taller than he was in real life.  Adam let the comparison fall quickly away. He did not want to be manifesting right now.

"You look weird," Ronan said. "Like short and out of focus or something."

Ronan flickered before him, and Adam felt a sudden thud of his own heartbeat, like his was being shoved back into his own body.

"Stop thinking about me, you idiot," Adam hissed, "You're kicking me out."

In real life, Ronan would have a snappy retort, but stripped to his dream self, he looked chastened and visibly regrouped.

Now that Ronan was with him, Adam let the thread between the two of them narrow and stretch - Ronan could do the work of holding Adam in the proper angle of the dreamspace with him.  He set his attention on shortening the tether between himself and Cabeswater, tugging at the physical manifestation of the place, connecting it more firmly with this version.

 

Ronan could feel Adam drifting from him.  His already insubstantial form blurred and wavered.  Ronan bent his thoughts on all the space around Adam to keep him close.  He did not want to overwrite Adam, just anchor him in the dream.  Silver fireflies twinkled into being, describing the shape of his body, tiny star-shaped flowers rose out of the grass and clung to his feet, black and silver birds crept onto the branches overhead and opened their beaks to emit complex harmonies in the cadence of bells, calling him to stay.  Adam re-solidified.  As he did, Ronan felt the ground firming beneath his feet, the birds and fireflies fading to transparency, the oaks whispering and reaching in the perpetual night.  Water and soil and cold wafted into his nose - this was the knife-edge of waking, the time to create.

Ronan reached for Adam's hand at the same time Adam reached for his.  Adam's eyes, usually grey in the dim light of this place, were as blue and endless as summer sky.  When their hands clasped, the vision that hit him was so powerful, he almost felt he'd received an electric shock. 

They were still in the glade, but all the characteristics that made it a forest, made it a thing at all really, muted themselves.  Everything was pulsating, grasping, breathing tendrils of light, but light infused with matter.  He would call it soupy, but he couldn't say why, as he hadn't touched it.  The place they stood was a concentrated knot of the stuff, but he could somehow perceive it stretching out in a long vein for uncountable miles, dimmer as it became distant from Cabeswater and Henrietta.  Billions of tributaries with their own tributaries sprang from the main river.  This light-soup river system was a place, the living substance of dreaming, but it was not a place the same way Cabeswater could be a place.  It was the nexus of possibility.

Fuck.  How did Adam scry into this without going mad?

Even more disturbing, he perceived that all the energy plasma of Cabeswater and the Henrietta ley line strained toward him, eager to be shaped, to be made.  Adam's presence near him seemed to sift the stuff, organize it into some kind of manageable flow, rather than a flash flood.

Again, fuck.

As quickly as it had appeared, the vision faded.  The trees were once again trees, but Ronan would never be able to be in this place with the same casual comfort again.

"You understand the destination?" Adam asked him quietly, gaze drifting out into the sea of the infinite he'd just shared. 

Ronan only nodded.

"Make it now, Greywaren," Adam said.  "I don't think we can hold it together much longer."

Adam's fingers tightened in his.  The stream beside them widened and rose abruptly up a glittering cliff, cloudy rock crystal not quite in keeping with the rest of the aesthetic.  Adam made a little noise of irritation at the small incongruity, which amused Ronan. 

The silver water rushed and roared in a waterfall that immediately hardened, smooth as glass.  The water still churned above and below, but the waterfall itself was hard and inert as ice, glimmering with the impression of flow behind it.

Adam let go of Ronan's hand all of a sudden, plunged his own hands into the river just below the fall, and something in the fabric of the dream/not-dream pulled taught.  Ronan stroked his fingers over the slick cold surface of the river mirror, and then he was awake, paralyzed, looking down at his sleeping self and Adam, beside him, sprawled face first in the grass, one hand in the water of the stream.  Behind them both, where there had once been a gentle rise and more wood, was a steep rock crystal cliff and a silvery mirrored fall.

He came back to his body and bolted up, immediately checking Adam's pulse.  It was there, faint and weak, but there.  He dragged Adam onto his lap, tucking Adam's cold face into his neck until he sputtered and twitched.  Adam's breath warmed his collar bone.

"What the fuck kind of gateway is that?" Adam drawled, sounding halfway to drunk.

"Half dead and the first thing you do is bitch about aesthetics," replied Ronan, not releasing Adam from his hold just yet. 

He waited until Adam had the strength to shove at him before he let go.

They climbed to their feet and examined the fall.  It should have been a perfect mirror, but Adam wasn't reflected at all, and Ronan's image only appeared in choppy fragments, inconsistent.

"How does it work?" Adam asked, frowning and poking at it.

"Through the looking glass," replied Ronan, "but you have to be a dream thing to use it.  Humans don't belong in that dream plasma shit."

"So," said Adam in his scholarly voice, "Opal would see herself, and could just walk through it?  Can we see you a little because you're the Greywaren, or because your mother was a dream thing?"

"I don't know!  It fucking creeps me out.  I want to go home and think about it before we tell Opal."

Adam regarded him keenly.  "You don't trust it," he said.

"I have fucking seen some shit and I need to process it, okay?"

Adam raised a knowing brow, but nodded.  "Couldn't have just been a door, huh?"

"Any asshole can walk through a door.  It's a portal to another fucking dimension, man."

Adam slipped an arm around Ronan's waist, allowing Ronan to rest an arm over his shoulder.  "I'll give it to you, Lynch," Adam said, "you aren't boring."

"Wish I could say the same about you, Parrish," he sighed dramatically.

Adam hooked a foot around Ronan's ankle and used the arm holding his waist to shove him forward, managing to duck his head nimbly out from under Ronan's elbow before Ronan fell on his face.  Quick as a snake, Ronan clotheslined the back of Adam's knees with his arm, then swept his feet out from under him with a leg.  As soon as he was on the ground, Ronan grabbed Adam's legs and pulled him underneath him, pinning Adam with his weight.

"Fine," said Adam pissily, "you win."

Ronan rolled his hips suggestively into Adam's.  "You could win too."

Adam's face contorted.  "The grass is wet and cold and there's a rock digging into my asscheek."

Ronan let go of Adam's arms to shove both hands under his rear to extract the rock.  Adam took advantage of the momentary distraction to knee Ronan in the ribs and flip him over.

"Sucker!" crowed Adam, planting his knees on the insides of Ronan's elbows.

"Ow, fuck.  I think your ass rock ended up under my shoulder."

Adam shook his head, grinning triumphantly.  "Nice try, Lynch.  I win this round."

He jumped up, brushing dirt and grass onto Ronan beneath him.  Ronan got up slower, groaning.  They stumbled out of the night glade into afternoon sunlight, a bit more rumpled than they had arrived.

"You realize that calls for vengeance?" Ronan whispered into Adam's right ear, leaving a kiss in its wake.

A strong hand gripped the front of Ronan's t-shirt, dragging him in for a hard kiss on the mouth. "Do your worst," Adam said against his lips.

***

There was no hiding it from Opal.  As soon as she saw them, her entire face lit up.  She made a triumphant cawing sound.  "You did it!  You amazing assholes!  I want to see it.  When can we go?"

Ronan collapsed onto the couch, arm over his face.  Adam crumpled onto it as well, similarly spent.  When Adam looked at her, he allowed all his melancholy, exhaustion, and concern show on his face.  She took an unsteady step back and closed her eyes, as if she was recoiling from a blow.

"Give us a day, won't you darlin'?  Just one more?"  Adam asked, his accent heavy in his mouth.

Opal launched into Adam, giving him a long, fierce hug.  Then she crawled over to Ronan, pressed herself against his side and forced her head up under his arm.  He did not open his eyes or turn his head toward her, but he held her protectively for a long time.

***

Everyone demanded to be present, of course, so it ended up being a week before they returned to the mirror fall. Gansey and Henry chattered amiably with Matthew as they traversed Cabeswater on the way to the starlight glade.  Adam walked hand in hand with Opal, attentive to her every sound and step.  Ronan and Declan trailed behind, wary, sleep-deprived shadows of each other.  Ronan had revealed the truth to Matthew a couple years ago, and in typical Matthew fashion, he'd taken it easily in stride.  He'd laughed and said he really was his mother's son.

Declan, possibly the only person who loved both Matthew and Opal the same way Ronan did, mistrusted the forest, the gate, and the entire idea.  He was terrified neither would come back through, or they would come back fundamentally changed in some terrible, irreparable way.  Either of those scenarios would gut Ronan so deeply Declan doubted even Adam would be able to resuscitate him.  The prospect of losing his entire family in one day after fighting so hard to have them; he was nauseated.  Fucking Cabeswater.  Fucking Dreamshit.  Fuck magic.  Why couldn't anything ever be normal?

The starlight glade was as calm and quiet as ever, but the energy seemed to build like white noise as they approached the mirror fall.  Matthew approached it first, smiling with wonder at his golden-haired reflection, far brighter than it should have been in the dim light.  Before he could get within touching distance, Ronan and Declan stepped in front of him.

"Wait," plead Declan, voice breaking, hand wrapped around his brother's forearm.

"It's okay, Dec," Matthew said, "I trust Ronan.  I'll come right back."

Matching desperate expressions marred both Ronan's and Declan's faces.  Ronan moved first, enveloping Matthew in a hug that probably cut short his oxygen supply. Declan wrapped up both of them, audibly choking on a sob.

"Jesus, you guys," Matthew sputtered, getting a little teary himself.  "Nothing bad will happen."

Adam, distracted by this misery huddle, failed to react quickly enough when Opal twisted her hand from his and sprang toward the gate.  Ronan's head jerked up at the sound of Adam's ragged shout, "Opal!"

But, light as a deer in a meadow, she leapt over the water and into her own reflection, wild joy on the mirror image of her face. Ronan's entire body trembled as his brothers gathered him into their combined strength.  He was about to sink to the ground despite it, to forbid Matthew to take another step, to wait for his own reflection to briefly appear and dive in himself, when Opal re-emerged, laughing, lithe as a dolphin leaping out from beneath a wave.

She was the Opal they knew, but maybe a bit taller, and sticking out from beneath her shorts were shapely human calves ending in dainty bare feet.  She stumbled a bit on them, still radiant with happiness.

"I don't know what you dumbasses love about these things," she said, lifting a pale foot.  "Hooves are better."

Adam fell to his knees, relief so deep it bowed him.  Opal went to him, placing a gentle hand in his hair.

"Goddammit, Opal!" yelled Ronan, rushing over to her.  He hugged her so hard she squeaked.

"I'm fine, you jackass, put me down!" she hollered just as loud.

He dropped her abruptly enough that her feet slipped out from under her and she fell on her butt in the grass.  Gansey and Blue beamed and clutched at each other.  Ronan sank into a squat, put his face in his hands, and tugged at his hair.  A fluid string of curses issued from him like a song.  Declan was leaning against a tree, covering his eyes with trembling hands.

Opal was the only one to notice Henry, standing away from everyone else, peering at the mirror gate with such naked longing it hurt her.  The visible ache of loss did not leave his expression when his shifted his gaze to her.

"You're not coming back," he said, only for her, "not really."

Soft as the words were, everyone heard them.  All attention turned to Opal.  She crouched in front of Ronan and pressed her forehead to the backs of his hands, still obscuring his face.  Though she addressed Ronan when she spoke, she turned her head to look at Adam.

"Greywaren," she began, and Ronan visibly tensed at her use of his title, "Cabeswater gave me to you when you needed me, and you gave me as much of my freedom as you could.  On this side, I'm a bird on the ground - a Kiwi."

Ronan made a noise that could have been a laugh if there wasn't so much anguish in it. Adam scooted closer to both of them and Opal put one of her hands in his.  Adam's other hand settled low on Ronan's curved spine.

"Kerah," she breathed, full of affection, "I need to fly."

"I know," he said, hoarse and gravelly.

"You made me a door, remember?  I'll use it."

Ronan nodded once, then pulled his hands away to cradle her face, pressing his forehead against hers.  They were dreamer and dreamt, not needing to speak to be understood.  As soon as he let her go, she surged into Adam's waiting arms, tucking her head under his chin as she had done every time they'd said goodbye over the years.  Though a couple stray tears found their way into her hair, he made no weeping noises, and his voice was steady when he said, "We'll miss you, love."

As Opal rose to embrace Blue and Gansey, Declan addressed Matthew.  His arms were crossed over his chest and his face was a stoic mask.  "Are _you_ coming back out?"

Matthew grinned.  He went to Declan and punched him in the shoulder.  "Why the fuck would I stay there?  Everything I care about is here."

"So why even go?" Ronan croaked.  "If something happens to me and you fall asleep, someone can bring you to Cabeswater and you can go then."

"You know," Matthew mused, "I don't have dreams.  When I'm sleeping, it's just...not awake.  Maybe, when I get back, I'll know what it's like.  Wouldn't that be cool?"

"Yeah, buddy," Ronan replied, closing his eyes against the wash of guilt, "that would be cool."

"You come right back," ordered Declan harshly, the lines of worry around his eyes making him look 10 years older.

Matthew rolled his eyes, "Yeah, okay.  I know."

Declan pulled Matthew into a causal headlock, aggressively mussing his hair.  When he let go, Ronan was right there, ready to pull Matthew into a less casual headlock with an even more aggressive round of head scrubbing.

While the brothers scuffled, Opal spoke low and earnest to Henry, both his hands in hers.  Adam noted that he did not appear to be saying goodbye to her.  Henry had grown contemplative instead, Robobee making agitated ellipses around his head as Opal went to Declan.

"You ready, O?" Matthew asked as she disentangled herself from Declan.

"Yep," she twittered.  Hand in hand, gleeful as children, they stepped through the looking glass.

Declan's arm was tight over Ronan's shoulders, desperately protective.  Slivers of the brothers flickered over the surface and disappeared again; a furrowed brow, a jean-clad leg, two sharp jaw lines, matching cowlicks on the right side.  Matthew's golden curls and dimpled grin emerged from beneath the mottled reflections of his brothers, alone.

"Why's everybody so quiet?" Matthew asked after a full 30 seconds of tense silence.

Gansey let out a relieved giggle.  Once he started, it kept going.  Blue slapped a hand over his mouth, which set Adam off in half-stifled little hiccup laughs.  Henry, who always found Adam's laugh hilarious, started next, and soon they were all laughing - stupid, relieved, exhausted.  As it died down, Matthew strode to his brothers, settling an arm over each of their shoulders.

"Can we get out of here and go eat now?" he asked, "I'm starving."

"Sure, pal," said Declan, "Anything you want."

Blue slipped her arm around Adam's waist, pulling him out into the light of day.  He gratefully trusted more of his weight than he would have liked to admit to her boundless strength.  Gansey put a hand on Adam's shoulder, falling easily into light chatter about unimportant things.

Henry followed reluctantly behind, throwing considering glances back at the mirror fall, even after it was out of sight.

***

Ronan spent so much of the day ping-ponging between his elation at success, relief that Matthew seemed normal, and grief over Opal's decision, he missed the subtle signs of Adam sinking into emotional withdrawal until fairly late into the evening.  No one else really noticed, all wrapped up in the events of the morning and the future plans of the Foundation.  Adam didn't sulk.  He answered when spoken to and exhibited appropriate facial expressions, but his eyes were vacant, his usually elegant movements stiff and gawky.

They were sitting on the couch, Adam's leg pressed against his.  Henry made an inane comment about global economics, a subject Adam was oddly passionate about.  Even Ronan, who did not give two shits about the topic, knew it was stupid.  Ordinarily, Adam's spine would straighten, he would elicit an irritated huff, and then launch into a precise and cutting correction that would both bore and demean the erring party.  Ronan adored it as long as it was not directed at him - a quintessential Adam behavior, both brilliant and merciless.  Adam let the comment pass without so much as a blink.  Observing him closely, Ronan finally noticed the heavy bags under his eyes, the listless posture of his expressive hands, the hint of hollowness under his cheekbones.

While Ronan had spent the last three months since Gansey's revelation getting lost in his own emotional tempest - sleeping poorly, storming around outside, generally being a shithead - Adam had been quietly sleepless, silently skipping meals, mildly burying himself in extra hours at work and little tasks around the farm Ronan was too disorganized to get to.  He'd been as swamped with worry and grief as Ronan, but Ronan had failed to take his head out of his own ass long enough to pay attention.  A wave of self-loathing washed over him.  It may have taken him way too fucking long to see, but he was not going to let it continue for one more minute.

"Shitdamn!" he loudly exclaimed, interrupting whatever conversation was going on.  "I've been awake for, like, three fucking days.  You guys do whatever the fuck you want.  We're going to bed."

Adam looked at him a little suspiciously, the only person who could possibly be aware that Ronan had managed nearly five hours of sleep the previous afternoon, but he did not protest at all when Ronan hauled him to his feet.

"Um," said Blue, "Okay... I guess Adam is like your security blanket or something?" she asked sweetly.

Ronan bared his teeth at her, silently screaming, _he needs to get the fuck out of here, don't make him feel like he has to stay_.

"Or something," Ronan growled at her. 

Blue detested Ronan getting aggressive with her, but nothing got his back up like a need to protect Adam.  He could see her getting ready to start some shit, but Gansey's had clamped firmly on her knee and her mouth clamped shut.

Out of the corner of his eye, Ronan caught Adam giving the room a tired little wave as Ronan towed him out of it by the wrist.  He didn't let go until they were safely in their bedroom with the door locked.  Adam drifted slowly to the oversized armchair by the window where he liked to read rather than the bed.  He slumped in its embrace like a rag doll.  Ronan knelt between his splayed knees, penitent, and rested his arms on Adam's thighs.

"I've been a self-centered shitbag for the last few months.  I'm sorry," Ronan said without preamble.

The left corner of Adam's mouth lifted, just a little.  "Just the last few months?" he asked wryly, edged with fond humor.

He lifted a hand to the back of Ronan's head and sifted his fingers through the short dark curls at the top.  Ronan shook the hand away - he did not deserve to be comforted.

"More than usual," Ronan amended.

"It's okay," Adam said distantly, "I know what you've been dealing with."

"It's _not_ okay," Ronan said with some heat, "because you've been dealing with the same shit and being there for me, tolerating all my crap, and I haven't done a motherfucking thing for you."

Ronan dropped his head into Adam's lap.  "I don't deserve you," he said, voice muffled by the fabric of Adam's pants.

A heavy sigh prefaced Adam's response.  "Could you save the self-flagellation for church?  I don't have the energy to do this right now.  I don't want to talk about it."

Ronan jerked up, but bit down on his flare of temper.  Annoying as it was to hear, it was true that even his fucking apology was about himself rather than Adam.

"Like we've _been_ not talking about it?  How's that working out?"

Finally a spark of life fired though Adam.  His cheeks flushed and something pissy entered his expression.

"It's shit, okay Ronan?  But I don't know what to say.  It's her choice, it makes sense, it's the best thing for her.  We did what we've been trying to for a decade.  I don't know why I-" his voice cracked and he stopped abruptly, taking a couple shallow breaths, fingers digging into the arms of the chair.

Ronan didn't say anything.  He kept his hands on Adam's legs, his eyes on Adam's face.  Adam swallowed, and his next breath was a sob.  Ronan pulled him off the chair onto the floor, into his lap, and held him in silence while he wept, and a little while longer after that.

When he was done, Adam sniffed and wiped his face on Ronan's shoulder, slipping his hands under Ronan's shirt to rest on his warm sides.

"Did you get snot on my shirt?" Ronan asked.

Adam sniffed again, but did not raise his head.  "Probably," he muttered.

"Gross," said Ronan, not making any move to pull away.

"You should take it off," Adam said. "I wouldn't want this to get awkward."

"I might feel a little awkward being the only one half-dressed," he countered.

"I'd hate for you to be uncomfortable," Adam agreed, sliding his hands up to pull Ronan's tee over his head, then shucking off his own.  Adam rubbed a lightly stubbled cheek against Ronan's collar bone.

Ronan eased Adam back and gently laid him out on the carpet, propping himself up on one arm beside him. He placed one fingertip at the hollow of Adam's throat, gently trailing it over Adam's torso in a meandering path, paying tribute to each ridge and valley.  When he reached the vee of muscle beside Adam's hip bone, he moved to settle his legs in between Adam's.  The journey taken by his finger was made in reverse in a wandering line of light kisses, interrupted only briefly by a sweep of tongue into Adam's belly button, a nip of teeth just below his left pectoral, a nudge of nose to each rib, a deliberate puff of air at the juncture of neck and shoulder.  By the time their lips met, Adam had wrapped his legs around Ronan's thighs, his arms around his back, and was pulling his entire body up meet Ronan's at every possible point.  Ronan pushed himself up, creating a space between them, and frowned at Adam.

"What?" Adam asked, half panting.

Ronan shook his head. "This is supposed to be apology sex."

"And that's different from regular sex how?" Adam indulged, angling his hips to grind up against Ronan's leg.

"Apology sex means I do most of the work while you enjoy it and look pretty," Ronan scolded, deliberately rubbing his thigh against Adam again.

"I thought you were the pretty one," Adam teased, placing a hand on Ronan's face.

His thumb pressed Ronan's lips and Ronan bit the end, then kissed it.  With a soft groan, Ronan dipped his head into Adam's neck, playing around the edge of creating a hickey low enough that the collar of Adam's dress shirt would cover it.

"I'm the fucking hot one.  Panties drop when I walk in a room.  You're just pretty."

"Guess I'm lucky ..uh, _fuck_ , Ronan, ...you're not interested in panties."  Adam dug into Ronan's back with his nails.

"Shut up and let me do my penance," Ronan replied, setting himself to removing Adam's pants and his own.

As he kissed his way up from Adam's ankles, Adam asked, "Isn't penance a punishment?"

Ronan waited until he'd made it all the way up the inner thigh before he responded.

"Hmmmm," he began, satisfied to feel Adam's cock twitch from the vibration.  "Penance is prayer, and penitent prayer is," Ronan paused to lick all the way up from base to tip, "a humbling of self to a higher being."

Adam snorted with self-deprecating mirth, even as his back arched with the pleasure of Ronan taking him into his mouth.  When the pressure of Adam's fingers on his scalp told him things were getting close, he pulled off and went over to the nightstand, smirking at Adam's vexed groan.

After they resituated on the bed, Ronan rolled a condom on Adam and prepped himself, as riveted by the sight of Adam flushed and feral with desire as he had ever been.  Adam wrapped a hand around Ronan, stroking him slowly.

As Ronan positioned himself, Adam said, "You aren't really...mmmm...pulling off humble."

Ronan leaned forward over him as they fell into an escalating rhythm.  With all his passion and reverence unconcealed, he gazed into Adam's eyes and said "Nihil habeo nisi vitam quam habeo et vita quam habeo est tua." (The life that I have is all that I have and the life that I have is yours.)

Adam's breath stuttered.  He kept his gaze locked with Ronan's as he came.  It was too much - Ronan couldn't hold back.  He bent over Adam, thrusting into Adam's hand against his stomach, to a swift culmination.  Still heaving, he whispered the rest, "Amor quem habeo amoris quem habeo est tuus, est tuus, est tuus." (The love that I have of the love that I have is yours and yours and yours.)

When he could finally lift his heavy head to look at Adam, he found everything he'd tried to give reflected back.  Adam took Ronan's face in both his hands and bestowed a long, grateful kiss, every second of which contained a new absolution.

***

Henry waited until everyone at the Barns had been asleep for a long time before creeping out the door and into his car.  He had never been to Cabeswater alone before.  It was a place that always seemed to belong so fundamentally to the others.

Even after ten years among them, he always felt a little bit like an outsider - the only one without some kind of magic of his own.  Blue and Gansey were the closest friends he'd ever had and they knew him well, but sometimes he was too flippant or quixotic for even them to see through.  He had never become good with words.

Opal's departure hit him in a way he didn't think any of the others understood.  Over the course of their explorations, he'd spent time with many psychics and even dated a couple.  He thought they'd be better at reading him than regular people, and they could be, but the understanding was always both inconsistent and incomplete.

Opal, on the other hand, was deeply intuitive.  Maybe it was because her purpose as a dream thing had been to steady and sort through Ronan's dreams - a guide through a tumultuous psyche.  Perhaps it was also because her status as a dream thing left her stranded out of her element - a thing too whimsical for the real world.  Whatever it was, she understood all the things Henry didn't say or said poorly, no matter how well he thought he obscured them. Their friendship was the thing that made him feel the closest to magical he had ever been.

Despite Opal's assurances that Cabeswater would be safe for him, he picked his way nervously through it, blowing out a long breath of relief when he finally entered the starlight glade.  After stumbling through a nighttime forest, the starlight and silver accents seemed bright.

It took him a few minutes to find a good spot to set up his tent and sleeping cot reasonably near the stream and mirror fall, but not close enough to get wet, even if the stream overflowed.  He might not be Sleeping Beauty, but he was not going to become a ley line sleeper curled up in the dirt by an oak tree.  He was rather fond of his corporeal form and would prefer to keep it well appointed.  As he stared at the top of his tent, he went back through the brief, hushed exchange with Opal.

"You could come."

"Don't tease me. I'm no dream thing.  Your magic mirror doesn't see me, your highness."

"Not right now, but the dream place is connected to the real place here.  If you were dreaming..."

"I would be a dream thing," Henry finished with wonder.  "But what happens to the rest of me?"

"The ley line has held other sleepers," she said.  "If you're sleeping here, I could wake you."

"What's it like?" he whispered hungrily.

"Come see," she said, and then she was gone.

Henry was not keen on sleeping outdoors, so it took him a long while, but eventually, mind on the glade and the mirror fall, he fell asleep.

The dream unfolded with him wading barefoot in the stream, not yet in sight of the fall.  The water was cool, but not cold like he expected.  Robobee buzzed ahead of him, mingling with a cloud of silvery moths, guiding him onward.  Opal was crouched down on the streambed by the gate, carefully arranging perfectly smooth stones in a complex pattern.  Henry's own face stared back at him from the fall.

"Hello, forest girl," Henry said.

Opal beamed at him, leaping up and trotting over on her hooves to clasp his hands.

"You came!" she said happily.  "Are you ready?"

"How will they know what happened?"

She pointed at the glowing amber form of Robobee.

"But this is a dream, how-"

Opal shook her head.  "Robobee is a dream thing.  It can take a dream message."

With only the slightest hesitation, Henry took her delicate hand and stepped through the glass.

He didn't have a body.  His thoughts were no longer locked inside his own mind - they were a part of everything else.  He could feel the thread of Opal's consciousness.  He could feel dreams forming and falling apart.  He could feel the thing that looked like a forest being awake and alive.  This was freedom. This was knowing.  This was being known.  "Oh," he said to everything, "Oh."

***

In the wee hours of the morning, before dawn had quite blossomed, four phones with ringers set to silent buzzed with four identical emails, which would not be read until far into the light of day, when Henry was further away than he'd ever been.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can only hope this was satisfying. I've had the idea for a long time, but it was really hard to find a way to write it into scenes. Next chapter will be short, last chapter long.   
> Also - love poem in Latin was lifted from the internet - I didn't write it. =(


	23. 13 years - Home Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The return of Henry and Opal
> 
> She took one of each of their hands in her small ones.  
> "You wouldn't like it," Opal said, a little sadly. "You make," she said, lifting Ronan's hand, "and you order," she continued, lifting Adam's. She brought their hands together between her own.  
> "Between you, a beautiful world is born, rich with meaning. My place, where I belong, is not about made things. It's ad infinitum. All things are one and all at once. Defining makes it less."

On the first anniversary of Opal's departure, by some unspoken agreement, everyone showed up at the Barns over the course of the day.  By nightfall, even Maura, Calla, and Gwenllion had descended upon the property bearing desert items of varying levels of quality.  Opal and Henry were nearly conjured out of thin air, they were so thoroughly discussed.

The second year, they had a campout in the little grove surrounding Opal's house.  Only Adam and Ronan went inside it, and when they came out they were both silent for a long time.

The third year, they made a real party out of it, resigned to the fact that the house would be overrun with well-meaning friends and relatives anyway.

After dinner, they gathered around the fire pit in the yard, where the Lynch brothers were tuning their instruments.

"To honor Opal," Declan proclaimed in his most supercilious manner, "the Lynch brothers will play fairy music."

"What's Adam doing?" Sarah asked cheekily.

Behind a music stand, the only one in evidence, Adam sat awkwardly with a small harp on his lap.  Nervous tension oozed off him.

"As a Lynch brother by marriage, Adam is required to torture us with his amateur harping," Declan replied.  Ronan and Matthew sniggered.

Adam glared daggers at Declan.  "I'm not that bad."

"He's only allowed to play off the sheet music," Ronan said jovially.  "He can't improvise for shit."

"Little ears!" Sarah remanded, pointing at William, who was already leaping around the fire pit like a little hobgoblin, his younger brother and the Sargent-Gansey twins toddling after him.

"Adam's playing will fucking deafen them anyway," Matthew chimed in.

"I don't have to do this, you know," Adam said.

"You're a goddamn Lynch and it's for Opal, so you do," Declan declared lazily.

"Last name's still Parrish," Adam grumbled quietly.

"Must be why you suck so much," Matthew said.

As they played, Gwenllion leapt up to cavort with the children, surprisingly graceful, guiding William through the motions of some courtly dance from long ago.  Maura and Blue quickly followed suit, joined by everyone else in short order.  Fairy lights that followed the flow of the dance and winked with the music made it easy enough to believe they'd all been transported to the realm of the Fae, never to return to mortal lands.

Adam had nearly come to the end of his modest repertoire when Gwenllion suddenly broke from the dance, cackling, and pointed a long finger into the dark.  "The fairy queen attends your revels!" She cried.

The music ceased abruptly, all heads turning to the blackness of the far field.  In the silence, a delicate chiming could be heard coming toward them.  Declan scooped up his sons as a tall, spiky shadow approached the circle of light.

The shadow resolved into a pair of African gazelles, slender-necked and curved-horned, harnessed to a silver chariot redolent with tiny bells, tuned perfectly with the bracelet on the charioteer's wrist.  She was slight and slender, white blonde hair flowing over her shoulders, enormous eyes crinkled with laughter.

"Kerah!" She cawed, more like a bird than a girl.  Harp and pipes hit the grass in the same moment, and the gazelles nearly gored both Adam and Ronan, they ran so heedlessly at the chariot.

Adam pulled Ronan down away from the horns so abruptly they both ended up on their knees before the beautiful animals.  Opal alighted with her companion, unhitched the gazelles in a few deft movements, and clicked her tongue to shoo her steeds off into the darkness.

Ronan just gazed at her as though she was an apparition.  Adam stretched out a hand.  With a gleeful shout, she hurled herself at them both, toppling them all into a messy, glorious, tearful hug that didn't leave room for any words.

"Henry!" Blue screeched, barreling toward Opal's tall, slim companion, who sported a distinguishing shock of impossibly tall dark hair.  Blue couldn't be sure, but she thought there might be glimmers of starlight in it.

Gansey was not far behind Blue, also hugging Henry ferociously.  "Tatiana and Oberon?" Gansey asked.

Henry shook his head, familiar sly smile pulling up his lips.  "Maybe her, but I'm no king, not there anyway.  Just a visitor to a foreign court."

Blue pulled back from Henry's arm, far enough to peer up keenly into his eyes.  "So, ambassador, what's it like?  Is it really a kingdom?"

"No," Henry said easily.  "It's not a made place.  It's a possibility place."

Blue and Gansey both watched him in silence, waiting for an elaboration that Henry couldn't find.  Henry felt the constraints of the ordinary world squeezing him again, thoughts leashed inside his head, self trapped inside his corporeal reality.  Gansey's regard softened.

"Robobee is in the dream barn, with your phone.  We figured you'd want it when you came back."

A relieved grin lit Henry's face.  "Gansey-boy, you're a prince among men," he said, patting Gansey on the shoulder.  "Looks like a good party.  What's the occasion?"

Blue laced her fingers through his, dragging him toward the fire pit.  "Opal's birthday," she said.

Henry frowned, eyeing all the children sharply.  "It's been a year?" he asked.

"Three," Gansey said.

Henry stopped abruptly.  "Three years?  Shit.  My mother will think I am dead."

"We told her where you were," Blue said, "Dean said she could keep a secret."

Henry nodded, step resuming, noticeably lighter.  "Three years behind on all the gossip?" He asked, flinging an arm over each of their shoulders. "We have a lot to catch up on."

They joined the rest of the group, already crowded around Opal, as close as they could get with both Ronan and Adam hovering immediately behind her.

Hours later, once everyone else had gone into the house to bed, Adam and Ronan sat cross-legged in the grass across from Opal.

"Will you stay?" asked Ronan, cutting straight to the hardest question.

Opal fixed him with her luminous gaze, passing something from dream to dreamer that Adam could not translate word for word, but could interpret well enough.  "No," Adam answered for her around a gusty sigh, "not for long."

"Why?" Ronan breathed, exposed in this moment as he ever allowed himself to be.

"I'm the ama via's thing, Greywaren.  That place is my place, just as this one is yours."

Ronan closed his eyes, not looking at her as he asked, "Will you come back again?"

She laughed, breaking up the web of sorrow that had been spinning around them.  "Stop being such fucking sad sacks," she said slapping them both on the knees.  "I do love you idiots.  That's enough to bring me back now and again.  Do you think I can't feel the Greywaren and the Magician calling me?"

"When?" Adam asked.

She shook her head ruefully.  "I told you before, dumbass.  There is no when.  I'm a dream thing.  When do dreams come and go?"

Adam groaned. 

"We're trying to tell you we miss you, brat," Ronan said, "You're basically our fucking kid."

"Hmmm," she replied, taking a long blade of grass between her thumbs to use as a whistle.  "I would have thought you'd be considering regular human children of your own by now.  Declan has two, and even Blue and Gansey have a little matched set." 

The sound from the grass whistle was both bright and eerie.  Adam and Ronan exchanged a long look.

"I know Parrish is pretty, but we'd still need a girl in the equation," Ronan said.

Opal directed a masterful withering look at him.  "I know how it works, asshole.  I'm a professional biologist."

"You're a fucking botanist, so plants are your thing, and I dreamed your bullshit credentials," Ronan spat back. 

The right side of her mouth curved up, and Ronan fought down an answering grin.

"There are many children, already made, who need parents," she said sagely.

"It's complicated," Adam said.  "There are a lot of rules and restrictions and the Barns is sort of a secret place.  We can't really have strangers showing up and poking around.  And the dreaming is dangerous.  It's hard for a kid to keep a secret like that."

Opal shook her head, laughing softly.  She lifted a hand to stroke Adam's cheek, little bells chiming crisply.

"For a magician, you have great difficulty remembering magic."

He opened his mouth to protest, but she whistled the little tune she always twittered to remind him he was overthinking.  Opal turned to Ronan.

"There are other dreamers on other amae vias, Kerah.  Little dreamers, afraid, hiding, abandoned.  All alone, they may become nothing but thieves.  With your help, maybe they can become Greywaren instead."

Ronan's expression was as complicated as Adam had ever seen it. He took Ronan's hand by instinct, to give him an anchor.  A quick image of white sunglasses flickered in Adam's mind at the touch.

"How are we supposed to find them?" Ronan grumbled.  "Adopting isn't - you can't just hand pick a fucking kid after you screen them for dreaming.  The system doesn't work that way."

Opal tsked at him.

"Fuck the system," she said derisively.  "You and your magus and your wealthy, powerful friends fix the system, stupid.  I've traveled with them - it's not that hard.  You could do it in barely any time at all."

Ronan and Adam recalled Greenmantle.  There seemed to be much more at risk, but it wasn't all that different.

"What about the locating?" asked Adam.

Something cunning shone in her countenance.  She had never looked more fae.  "Do you think he's the only dreamer who ever called for help?" She asked, gesturing at Ronan.  "I know them.  I can show Henry.  He'll tell you how to find them."

Ronan bristled.  "Fucking Cheng again?  Why can't you just show me?"

"You, both of you, your dream places are too stubborn, too much yours.  I could visit, but I couldn't shape.  And I might not get out again."

"You can do that with Cheng's?" Adam asked, sounding more like a protective father than he might have imagined.

Opal smiled.  "Henry is . . . " she tapped her finger against her chin, chiming gently.  "Willing to bend.  He is much more flexible than either of you could be.  You're both deep roots, strong trunks, firm branches.  Henry is more like . . . giant kelp."

"You're as fucking weird as always," Ronan said.

She laughed merrily.  "You're still a fucking dumbshit."

They regarded one another fondly.

"Why him?"  Adam blurted suddenly.

Opal knew what he meant.  She could see it reflected on both their faces, feel the question rising out of their tangled, mingled dream places.  Why didn't you take us?

She took one of each of their hands in her small ones.

"You wouldn't like it," Opal said, a little sadly.  "You make," she said, lifting Ronan's hand, "and you order," she continued, lifting Adam's.  She brought their hands together between her own.

"Between you, a beautiful world is born, rich with meaning.  My place, where I belong, is not about made things. It's _ad infinitum_.  All things are one and all at once.  Defining makes it less."

Ronan looked befuddled, but Adam was resigned.  She shook her head again, this time at herself.

"It's not a good place for you, but Henry has always longed for such a place, so it can be good for him."

"Will he go back with you?" asked Adam.

"Not soon, but someday, I think he will."

Ronan grunted, standing up and stretching his back.  "Will you be here in the morning at least, brat, or are you disappearing to fucking dreamland right away?"

She laughed, leaping up and helping Adam to his feet.  "I can stay a few days," she answered.

"Good," he said, "I need your help with the rooster.  And if you're leaving me with fucking antelopes I need to know what to feed them."

She took both his hand and Adam's walking back to them house with them.  "They're fucking gazelles, loser, and they're not that different from normal deer.  They're just prettier."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next phase - becoming parents to an actual human, is getting long. If you're interested, it will be in a separate fic. If not, thanks for reading. Your kind words have been incredibly inspirational.


End file.
